PANAJI: Builders expect the state government to implement the Regional Plan 2021 once and for all after accepting suggestions from public during this month. There has been much confusion in the real estate sector because the state government has kept both Regional Plan (RP) 2001 and RP 2021 in force fearing public outcry.
RP 2021 was notified in 2011 by the previous Congress government, but there was so much protest that some sections of society wished it to be scrapped. The current BJP government didn’t scrap it, but kept it in abeyance. That being the reason, there is no clarity in the real estate sector.
As of now, if RP 2021 shows a certain piece of land as settlement land but RP 2001 doesn’t show it as settlement land, then the state government doesn’t give approval for construction. This half-hearted approach was taken to somehow keep everyone happy. But, it has only spread confusion. The state government has now decided to keep the RP 2021 open for suggestions in the month of December 2015.
“After taking suggestions from people, the state government should strongly come forward and implement the RP 2021 so that the entire process becomes smooth”, said Dr Jagannath (Desh) Prabhudessai, president of the Goa unit of CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India).
It is high time that the state government finalises the regional plan and implements it once and for all. The implementation must happen before the next state elections, or else the issue is bound to get politicised. Real estate players get much flak in the absence of clarity on regional plan because every time a debate on this issue comes up, certain sections of society complain that builders gain a lot without realising that builders face a lot of confusion and anxiety if they don’t know which piece of land they can develop.
K KulaSekhar, designated partner, Milroc, said, “I pray and hope that the government finally implements the regional plan as it is so crucial for the state’s development”.
In fact, it is not just real-estate sector, which gets affected due to lack of clarity on regional plan, but any and everyone who deals with land including people willing to build a house, industry and hospitality sector all suffer due to this confusion
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WHAT'S THE BEWILDERMENT
* RP 2021 was notified in 2011 by Congress government
* The plan comes under protest; many want it scrapped
* The current BJP government keeps it in abeyance
* Currently, settlement land in RP 2021 doesn't show RP 2001
* No clarity in the real estate sector over settlement land
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NGOs ASSAIL REOPENING OF
RP-2021 SANS GUIDELINES
PANAJI: Ridiculing the entire move of the State government to once again send the notified Regional Plan 2021 (RPG-2021) for public suggestions and objections, this time free from any guidelines, several NGOs in Goa have expressed fears of the plan meeting a chaotic fate.
Social activist Dr Oscar Rebello, who has been with the RPG-2021 since its initial days, says the move will only create more confusion and chaos for both the people and the office.
“With no guidelines, anyone and everyone can object to everything and anything. This is something that will be detrimental to the entire process,” he says citing the example of road widening that people may object too.
In the past, Aam Aadmi Party’s Dean D’Cruz listed specific guidelines that the government should impose to help formulate a better regional plan. According to him, road widths should be based on ground reality and not on proposed road lines, reframing of MIZ (Micro Industrial Zone) as purely Village Work Areas and scaling down to only include village industries for locals and a review of the village plans where the plan prepared by the village committee has been superseded by a panchayat plan in consultation with the local MLA.
He also said there was need for deletion of eco-tourism zones. "Big investors have bought large tracts of land and attempted to smuggle their projects into the plan under the guise of eco-tourism,” he said. Another guideline was to limit farm houses in orchard zones only to ground floor with a maximum five percent of a minimum 4,000 square meter plot and maximum 10,000 square meter plot to keep with agriculture based dwelling.
