PANAJI
Much to everyone’s surprise, the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) has dropped its proposal to conduct an aerial survey of the North Goa coastal belt following directions from the Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira.
In March, the Board had initiated a process and invited bids to conduct an aerial survey of the North Goa coastal belt to map and prepare a database of the structures that have come up along the 80 km long coastline. The survey area was supposed to span 500 metres seawards from the coastline and extend up to 1.5 km inland along the mainland.
The move came following the High Court pulling up authorities over the operation of various illegal structures across the coastal belt, particularly in the Coastal Regulation Zone areas.
However, the Board decided not to go ahead with the proposal after the Minister assured on the Floor of the House not to implement the project.
“The members were informed that the proposal to conduct aerial survey of North coastal belt had come up for discussion during the last Legislative Assembly (March) and the Minister for Environment had given an assurance,” reads the minutes of the latest meeting.
The drone survey would have helped the Pollution Control Board to ascertain the violations pertaining to Consent to Operate and Establish under Air and Water Act by the structures or establishments.
Both, the Minister and GSPCB chairman Mahesh Patil remained unavailable for the comments.
As reported earlier, the objective of the aerial survey is to demarcate hotels, residential buildings, houses, beach shacks, recreation parks, open plots and other tourism recreation-related activities that have come up over the years along the north coastal belt.
The exercise would have also helped the Pollution Control Board to locate and mark the sources and levels of pollution in drainages, sewage channels, creeks and outfalls that discharge effluents into the sea, which is otherwise difficult to ascertain.
