Cabinet clears move to drop ‘Section 16B’ from TCP Act

PANAJI
The State cabinet on Wednesday approved a move to repeal the controversial 'section 16-B' from the Town and Country Planning Act, 1974, and insert yet another provision which will give the government to modify the regional plan and outline development plan (ODP) of a region, out of turn.

The proposal, moved by TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane cites the perennial growing demand and need for housing, commercial and other infrastructure in Goa as the reason requiring the amendment to the TCP Act, to arm the government with the power to amend the RP and the ODPs so as to carry out changes in the land-use zoning.

Under the new provision, the government proposes to give itself powers to make the changes in the RP and/or ODPs after giving a 30-day notice to invite objections and suggestions from the public.

According to the proposal, currently there is no provision in the TCP Act by which the government has power to make such changes as the High Court has barred giving final approval to changes under 'section 16-B'.

Section 16-B was introduced in August 2018, when Goa Forward Party's (GFP) Vijai Sardesai was the TCP Minister. It had given rise to a major controversy with allegations of corruption for converting land-use zones and its validity challenged before the Bombay High Court.

The petition is still pending before the High Court even as it had passed an interim order which restricted the government from granting final approvals to the proposals for land-use change under the section 16-B.

Interestingly, the current proposal approved by the Cabinet, does not make any mention of another controversial amendment to the TCP Act enacted in August last year by which 'section 17(2)' was inserted in the Act to make "corrections" in the Regional Plan under the guise that there were 'inadvertent errors' in it.

Over the last one year, the TCP Board has made dozens of changes in the Regional Plan converting the land-use zone of lakhs of square meters of land calling it 'correction' of existing inherent errors in it.

Several of these cases taken up for correction under section 17(2) since August last year included those that had applied for zone change under section 16-B.

There had been over 7,500 applications for change in land-use zone under section 16-B until the government consciously decided to stop accepting such applications in deference to the pending challenge of the section before the Bombay High Court.

Meanwhile in other decisions the cabinet also approved a proposal to convert the Goa Motor Vehicles Tax (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023 which slashed the tax on high-end vehicles and also rationalised the tax structure for purchase of new vehicles, into a Bill which will be put before the Goa legislative assembly in the budget session slated to begin on February 2.

An amendment to the law governing the Goa Labour Welfare Fund also came before Wednesday's cabinet meeting for approval which was granted.

The cabinet also cleared changes in the Judicial Services Rules and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law so the State law is compatible with the Centre's GST guidelines.