PANAJI
The much delayed Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) based on the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification of 2011 for Goa has been finalised with the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF & CC) putting its stamp of approval and signing the document.
Goa’s Environment Director, Dashrath Redkar, confirmed the development on Thursday.
Redkar said, he expects the State government to receive a physical copy of the finalised CZMP in a day or two after which it will be scanned and uploaded to the websites of the Environment Department and also on the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) portal.
The CZMP was notified by the State government and sent for the final nod of the MoEF&CC’s and finalisation back in September after overshooting multiple deadlines set by the National Green Tribunal.
The port limits and other structures, an acrimonious bone of contention between greens and the State government, however are not included in the approved CZMP.
Another red-flag raised by greens -- that sand dunes dotting the entire 105-km long coastline have either been omitted or under-represented in the final plan -- remains unresolved. However, the State government claims it has been permitted to map the sand dunes all over again using local expertise.
Meanwhile, the CZMP has marked in it heritage and archaeological sites. Also, the High Tide Line (HTL) restrictions are as per 2011 CRZ notification -- 0-200 metres will be No Development Zone (NDZ) and from 200 to 500 metres of the HTL, constructions can be done subject to approvals.
As for rivers, the no-development zone extends up to 100 metres from the HTL, according to Redkar who said that although the maps in the CZMP are to a scale of 1:25,000, the Central authority has given the State government the leeway to prepare and approve local maps to a scale of 1:4,000.
Redkar said, the contentious issue of mapping the left out sand dunes can be taken care of by these local maps drawn to the scale of 1:4,000.
Meanwhile, the State government has already kick-started the process of preparing the State’s CZMP based on the new CRZ notification issued by the MoEF&CC issued in 2019.
Interestingly, the CRZ-2019 notification has been widely criticised by environmentalists as it dilutes the restrictions against development in the vulnerable zones and reduces by half the distance from river banks for the No Development Zone to 50 meters. It is 100 meters in the 2011 CRZ notification.
The State government has already identified Kerala-based National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS) as the agency to prepare the CZMP-2019 and the correspondence with it is currently on to formally appoint it for the task.
“Once some clarifications we have sought from the agency are received, we will go ahead and issue the work order,” Redkar said.
The finalisation of the CZMP-2011 by the MoEF&CC has come as a relief for the State government which had faced several strictures from the NGT for failing to meet multiple deadlines.
The State government was also at the receiving end of sharp criticism from Goa’s greens and environmental NGOs over the last couple of years for shoddy preparation of the draft CZMPs by its contracted agency -- the Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NSSCM).
Sustained agitation had forced the government to go in for a revision exercise after glaring errors were pointed out after ground-truthing by teams of personnel drawn from government departments such as Water Resources Department (WRD), Land Survey Department, Fisheries Department, Environment Department and Forest.
