PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has written to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF&CC), seeking a number of changes in the draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) for Goa.
Some of the key demands include deletion of port limits from CZMP and a demand that no structures should be shown in the CZMP plans except for authorised ones like lighthouses, jetties, etc.
In a related development, Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral will fly to New Delhi on Monday to meet Union Minister of MoEF&CC Bhupender Yadav in this connection.
Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral, who has also written letters on similar demands and has vociferously taken up the demand with the Centre in the interest of Goa, confirmed that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had also written a letter on Wednesday demanding that the State should be at liberty to choose any one of the seven notified authorities (one of them being NIO Goa) to refer petitions, objections and suggestions regarding changes in the CZMP plans.
At present, only the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management at Chennai has the authority to make changes in the CZMP as per the present Act.
In his letter, the chief minister has pressed the State Government's demands for deletion of port limits from the CZMP, that structures are not to be depicted on maps except for authorised ones like lighthouses, jetties, etc. to be depicted and the deletion of buffer zone for mangroves in khazans.
The CM has also highlighted several demands for proper appraisal of sand dunes along the coastline in Goa and asked the MoEFCC to consider this before finalising the CZMP for Goa.
According to sources, the CM’s letter is in response to certain observations of NCZMA at its meeting on February 22 on the draft CZMP 2011 for Goa. The State government was asked to provide proper justification for non-depiction of port limits on the CZMP.
“As the legality of a structure cannot be decided on the basis of being shown or not shown in the Directorate of Settlement and Land Records (DSLR) Maps as they were promulgated in the 1970s and no further promulgated maps of February 1991 are available for confirmation, the GCZMA has recommended to the NCSCM not to show any structures on the CZMP maps except structures on foreshore such as jetties, wharves, quays, ramps, lighthouses, beacons, and areas or structures of archaeological importance and heritage sites,” said Cabral.
There had been several objections and suggestions from the public claiming that their structures were not shown in the draft CZMP or that a structure was wrongly shown on the maps.
