MAPUSA
A day after uproar in the Goa Legislative Assembly over key questions related to Section 39A of the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act going unanswered, Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Friday clarified that most of the pending queries pertaining to the TCP department will be addressed on the penultimate day of the ongoing session.
Tawadkar informed the House that a majority of the starred and unstarred questions related to the TCP portfolio have been scheduled for response on August 7, the second last day of the current monsoon session.
One question has been deferred to the next session, while another has been transferred to the Industries Department for reply.
The clarification comes in the wake of strong protests in the Assembly, especially from the Opposition, who raised concerns that several questions regarding Section 39A and land-use conversions were either dismissed as sub judice or left unanswered entirely.
Legislators had accused the government of evading accountability on controversial provisions that allow retrospective land-use regularisations.
Section 39A has been under intense scrutiny for allegedly enabling large-scale regularisation of unauthorised constructions and land-use changes, leading to concerns over haphazard planning and potential misuse of the law.
Opposition MLAs had demanded transparency and accountability in the TCP department's functioning, with some calling for a rollback of the section or, at the very least, detailed responses in the House.
The Speaker’s announcement now sets the stage for a potentially heated penultimate day of the session, as the contentious issues are formally taken up for discussion.
The monsoon session of the Goa Legislative Assembly is expected to conclude on August 8.
