MARGAO
Alleging a Rs 1000 crore scam in the Kadamba Plateau PDA area, Goa Forward Chief Vijai Sardesai on Tuesday said the government is clandestinely trying to bring the Old Goa area under the Kadamba Plateau PDA under the shroud of protests of double-tracking and coal expansion.
He said the government’s decision to include Ella village in Old Goa in the PDA area will spell doom for the conservation areas of the Old Goa churches.
Addressing the media, Sardesai reminded that when he headed the TCP Department, the department had proposed only 1.5 kms on either side of the Kadamba plateau road to be included in the PDA not interfering with the conservation area.
“If the Old Goa village is included in the PDA area, the permissible building height will be about 30 mts in various commercial zones as opposed to the nine-meter height restriction currently allowed in panchayat areas under the Regional Plan,” he pointed out.
Sardesai alleged that the BJP government wants to make Old Goa into Dubai with high rise buildings, adding further that the Bainguinim garbage treatment plant, also being set up in the area is not being planned for Panaji city but for this new city which will develop around the PDA.
Speaking about the issue of the government notice to JSW for which certain persons are applauding it, Sardesai explained how the demand notice is a procedure that automatically follows upon serving a show-cause notice as per the statutes and that government has not taken any bold step but is a mere formality.
He further explained how JSW has challenged the maintainability of the main show-cause notice served to it in the court of law.
