PANAJI
Noted Goan-origin urban planner Tahir Noronha will deliver a talk on the recent amendments to multiple of Goa's land regulations and building laws with a focus on their impact on the State's fragile eco-systems including the unique khazans.
Noronha, an urban and regional planner pursuing a masters degree in the US, will deliver the talk via the Zoom online platform on May 29 at 6 pm.
Titled 'Unraveling Goa's Land Regulation Amendments' Noronha will deliberate on how the recent amendments to the Goa Town and Country Planning Act & the Goa Building Regulations will fragment fragile eco-sensitive systems in Goa, including khazans, an unique land use technique for simultaneous paddy farming and natural pisciculture.
Promoters of the talk, #AmchemMollem, one of the collectives which took shape during the agitation against the three linear projects, has said past planning in Goa intentionally protected 'natural cover' zones from such destructive development, which the recent amendments now threaten to reverse.
Tahir, who was also one of the campaigners in the forefront of the agitation against the allegedly illegal bungalow in the precincts of the Old Goa heritage sites, has interests in public participation and environmental protection.
He explores policy tools that can help leverage local knowledge to guide sustainable development and is pursuing a Master's Degree at the University of Michigan.
One recent amendment in the TCP Act which has drawn wide attention is the one that empowers the Chief Town Planner to make any changes in land-use zones on the pretext of the zoning being erroneous in the Regional Plan.
Activists and environmentalists across the State have raised a banner of protest arguing that it in effect destroys the purpose of the decennial macro-scale planning and formulation of Regional Plans.
Town and Country Planning Minister Vishwajit Rane has justified the amendment with the argument that landowners have suffered with the RP-2021 having erroneously zoned nearly 6-crore square meters of land as 'non-settlement'.
