MARGAO
As the Town and Country Planning department has extended the time by 30 days for the South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) to finalise the Outline Development Plan (ODP) for the Margao and Ponda planning areas, questions are raised about why the planning body could not set the process in motion over the last one month.
For, while the SGPDA at its meeting had adopted a resolution to request the TCP Board to consider extending the ODP process by 30 days, the planning board, sources said, had immediately accepted the PDA’s decision for extension of time.
The moot question that has remained unanswered is why the SGPDA did not set in motion the process to invite the suggestion and objections from the public to the ODP when the TCP Board had accepted the PDA request at the board meeting.
When this question was posed to SGPDA Chairman Krishna Salkar to shed light on the delay by the PDA in setting in motion the process to extend the ODP finalisation by 30 days, he was quick to reply saying the SGPDA has received the TCP decision only last Friday.
He conceded that the SGPDA had taken the resolution asking the TCP Board to grant 30 days extension to complete the ODP process long ago, saying that the PDA could not go ahead with the process since no communication had come from the board.
“The SGPDA received the green signal from the TCP department only last Friday though we had asked for the permission over a month ago,” he said.
Salkar said he has no idea why there was a delay to communicate the decision to extend the process by 30 days, with sources saying the board had approved for the SGPDA to invite suggestions and objections to the ODP over a month ago.
Salkar informed that the communication received from the TCP will be placed before the ensuing meeting of the SGPDA, after which the process of inviting suggestions and objections will be set in motion.
The SGPDA finalised the 2028 ODP for Margao and Ponda in 2019 when the PDA was headed by Goa Forward leader Dr Renuka Da Silva and when party chief Vijai Sardesai was the TCP Minister.
The PDA, however, again opened the ODP in 2021 after the planning body headed by then BJP MLA Wilfred D’Sa submitted a proposal to the government. Though the SGPDA had received around 160-odd suggestions and objections to the ODP 2031, the planning body could not take the process to a logical conclusion given the intervening 2022 Assembly election.
SGPDA chief says CM to take call on shifting wholesale fish market
MARGAO:
The South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) Chairman MLA Krishna Salkar has said that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant will take a call on the question of shifting the wholesale fish market to a new site to facilitate GSIDC to complete work on the modern market.
He told The Goan that the issue of temporary shifting of the wholesale fish market to a new site is on hold as it involves huge funds to prepare the site to host the market.
“I have personally spoken to the Chief Minister and he has promised to work out a solution,” he said.
Shifting of the wholesale fish market to a temporary site has been kept on hold after rough estimates showed that it may cost nothing less than Rs one crore to prepare the temporary ground.
