MARGAO
An extraordinary gram sabha of Betalbatim Village Panchayat on Monday unanimously resolved to demand the scrapping of the No Development Zone (NDZ) and No Developable Area (NDA) provisions under Section 39-A of the Town and Country Planning Act.
The meeting, chaired by Sarpanch Anthony Fernandes, was attended by a large number of villagers, who lodged their objections to the official notification dated June 18, 2026, classifying NDZ and NDA zones in the village.
At the meeting, the members took strong objection to the notification published in the Official Gazette and registered their unanimous objection to the proposal to designate various survey numbers in Betalbatim village as NDZ and NDA.
They wondered how the TCP could change the zones without any statutory backing, as these terms do not exist in the TCP Act, the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations, 2020, or the Regional Plan 2021.
The gram sabha also adopted another resolution demanding the scrapping of Section 39-A of the TCP Act.
Addressing the meeting, former Minister Mickky Pacheco demanded that the agricultural fields, orchards, khazans, mangroves, salt pans and lakes be permanently secured under strict environmental no-development frameworks backed by Central law. “The Goa Land Revenue Code, 1968, is an administrative tool for tax collection; it cannot and will not save our village from destruction. Only an unyielding, legally permanent no-development mandate, paired with a strict local physical audit by our Village Panchayat to include every single omitted eco-sensitive plot, will preserve the heritage of Betalbatim for the generations that succeed us,” he added.
