PANAJI
The State government can now breathe easy as the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Chennai, has “accepted” the redrawn drafts of the Coastal Zone Management Plans (CZMPs) post the appraisals and incorporation of the objections/suggestions received at marathon public hearings.
All the appraised public suggestions and objections were accepted by the technical scrutiny committee of the NCSCM, headed by Dr Shailesh Nayak, which met in Chennai on Wednesday, according to Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) member-secretary Dashrath Redkar.
“They (NCSCM) will now revise the plans with the changes and submit them to us. Our technical officials will then check for any discrepancies and seek further corrections through mutual consultation with NCSCM officials and then submit these to the National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) for final approval before the December 31 deadline,” Redkar said.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the NCSCM technical scrutiny committee, the Goa government was represented by an expert and also some officials from related departments like WRD, fisheries, agriculture, forest and land survey.
The Goa government was represented by GCZMA Chairman Arun Kumar Mishra, expert member Mahesh Patil, Redkar, OSD Sanjeev Joglekar, Dr N S Varde, Dr Prabhakar Shirodkar and several officers of local departments including the Directorate of Survey and Land Records (DSLR) and the WRD.
The Goa government and its environment ministry had been pushed to the corner earlier in October this year when the NGT refused to accept its request for an extension of the December 31 deadline to submit the finalised plans.
Greens are still skeptical about transparency in the finalisation of the plans and whether they and the public will get an opportunity to join the process before final plans are dispatched.
