PANAJI
All towns and cities in Goa governed by local bodies (municipalities) could soon have a master plan drawn for each of them.
Town and Country Planning Minister Vishwajit Rane, who also holds the Urban Development portfolio, said the master plan will be developed for each municipality in consultation with the respective local bodies.
Rane on Thursday chaired a meeting with officials of the Urban Development Department where the deliberations centred on the idea of formulating master plans, ensuring ease of doing business in the cities and ensuring central government schemes are utilised.
"We examined all completed and pending projects, besides those in the pipeline," Rane said after the meeting.
He also said that he has directed the officials to study how best to utilise the Union ministry's assistance schemes and also to take forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to ensure ease of doing business.
Rane said, the meeting also discussed conducting and encouraging public awareness campaigns to ensure that the general public are aware of all the services provided by the Urban development department.
Interestingly, the proposal mooted by Rane to prepare master plans for all cities and towns in the State comes close on the heels of his decision to suspend Outline Development Plans (ODPs) most of which encompass planning areas that overlap geographical jurisdictions of municipalities.
Rane had on Wednesday got the TCP department to suspend the operation of the already notified Calangute-Candolim, Arpora-Nagoa-Parra and Vasco ODPs.
The processes of drafting ODPs of Panaji, Kadamba plateau (greater Panaji), Mapusa, Margao and Ponda were also kept on hold and the processes are expected to be restarted afresh.
