OLD GOA
Coming down heavily on the government for including parts of Santa Cruz village in Bambolim ODP despite opposition, the villagers have urged the panchayat to file a case in the High Court to ensure that the ODP is scrapped and withdrawn immediately.
The decision was taken at a special gram sabha meeting held on Sunday with the villagers opining that legal option is the only way forward as the ODP has already been finalised.
Speaking at the meeting, a local Elsa Dias pointed out that the entire episode of including parts of Santa Cruz in GPPDA was to ensure that an open area near Goa University (GU) was included.
“Just to include that particular area, several other connecting areas were also included so that doubts did not creep in the minds of the villagers,” Dias stated.
To prove her point, Dias said that in the draft ODP all the areas were shown with 100% FAR. “However, in the final ODP the FAR for the area near GU was increased to 300% and that too with a new zone called ‘special commercial’, which only exposed the real intent of the government,” she added.
“Normally, whatever is proposed in the draft plan finds its way in the final plan. But, in this case the exact opposite has happened as the FAR has been increased exponentially,” Dias informed while stating that anything can come up in that area, including poisonous industries as ‘special commercial’ zone is not defined.
“They will allow setting up of virtually anything, including poisonous industries, as there is no definite mention of ‘special commercial’ zone,” she said and called upon the villagers that the existence of Santa Cruz village itself is under threat if the ODP is not scrapped and withdrawn immediately.
“As per the High Court, a development plan has to be prepared in accordance with laws of the Panchayat Raj Act and the Constitution of India. In this case, this has not happened as the ODP has been thrust upon us without taking our objections into consideration and by trampling upon our constitutional rights,” Dias stated and made a case that the issue be taken to the High Court so that the ODP is scrapped and withdrawn.
The villagers, who were present in large numbers, later passed a unanimous resolution urging the panchayat authorities to pass a resolution at the fortnightly meeting citing their opposition to the ODP and then file a case in the High Court demanding its scrapping and withdrawal.
