TCP Minister says case scrutiny before CTP action
PANAJI
Town and Country Planning Minister Vishwajit Rane on Thursday said the department will have an "expert committee" which will scrutinise all cases before the Chief Town Panner (CTP) exercises his power under a recent amendment to "correct" erroneous land-use zones in the Regional Plan 2021.
The committee will scrutinise all the cases under Section 17(2) of the TCP Act which was enacted during the budget session in March this year, and which gave powers to the TCP to alter land-use in the Regional Plan, he said.
The committee to be notified by the government will have on board members such as the Chairman of the Environment Appraisal Committee, scientists from the Centre for Environment Education, architects, engineers, legal experts, the President of GCCI and officials from the Government of Goa.
It will assist and work in tandem with the TCP Department, Rane said.
The move comes in the face of growing protests against the amendment from greens and environmental NGOs, who have expressed fear that it is a tool to promote large-scale conversion of land to settlement at the behest of the real estate and builders lobby.
The government last month already exercised this power when the CTP converted some 60,000-odd square metres of 'no development zone' land to settlement in Morjim, Pernem.
CTP (Planning) Rajesh Naik, by a notification "corrected" six land parcels aggregating over 62,000 square metres in the fast developing Morjim village from orchard to settlement zone.
Two entities owning this land – M/s Gangareddy Infra Pvt Ltd and one Konidela Ramcharan Tej – had approached the government for the 'correction' under this new amendment, barely days after it was notified and took effect.
Six crore sqmt land is wrongly converted to settlement: Rane
PANAJI: In yet another decision, TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane said that land “wrongly” converted in the Regional Plan 2021 will be reversed.
Rane, who claimed the quantum of such land is to the tune of six crore square metres across the State, said it will again be scrutinised by the ‘expert committee’ on a case-to-case basis.
He said the TCP department will form an expert committee to scrutinise the discrepancies and get them corrected and reversed.
“We will conduct a case-by-case inquiry, and the survey numbers of each land will be reversed,” Rane said.
He also said, the committee report will be made public in the next three months and the names of the members and minutes of the meeting will also be put in public domain. Also, the officers involved in such acts will be punished, if required, suspended before the next assembly session, Rane said.
