PANAJI
The government has bifurcated the environment department and CRZ-implementing authority from these works and has set up two committees under the leadership of the North and South Goa Collectors.
All complaints pertaining to CRZ violations will now be handled by these two committees.
The committees, set up under the leadership of North Goa Collector Nila Mohanan and South Goa Collector Anjali Sehrawat, will include officers of various departments such as PWD and WRD, an order by the environment department has revealed.
Cases pertaining to illegal constructions and complaints on violations in CRZ were earlier handled by the GCZMA and expert members previously were entrusted the task of monitoring the work, submitting a report and later initiating action against the CRZ violation.
It was believed that the environment department and GCZMA were overloaded with these duties and a huge number of complaints, prompting the government to effect the change.
Under the new arrangement, the GCZMA will look after issuing of permissions, while the district Collector will now handle cases of CRZ-related illegal constructions.
While the GCZMA included expert members from society, the new arrangement is expected to have only government bureaucrats handling these cases as part of members in the Collector's committee.
The GCZMA had received 400 complaints in 2012-2013, followed by 480 complaints in 2014-2015.
The large number of complaints pertained to various violations along the CRZ, including illegal development in the No-Development Zone, extending the construction outside demarcated area of CRZ, hill-cutting activity, illegal constructions in Khazan land areas and illegal felling of mangroves.
According to information by the GCZMA in the Assembly last month, 435 of the 908 complaints were from Bardez taluka alone, followed by Tiswadi (125), Salcete (110), Pernem (94), Canacona (72),
Mormugao (46), Ponda (14), Bicholim (8), Quepem (3) and Sanguem (1).
Of these complaints, 41 complaints have been disposed off, while 270 cases are pending and action has been initiated in 597 cases.
