the goan I network
PANAJI / MAPUSA
Despite public outcry against the Regional Plan 2021, Town and Country Planning Minister, Vijai Sardessai on Wednesday told the Legislative Assembly that government would go by one plan and that was RP-2021.
“There is one demand of one state, one plan. I am declaring that if there has to be one plan in Goa it has to be RP-2021. I am very clear on this,” said Sardessai, while responding to the demands for grants for TCP.
In his almost 48-minute speech, the TCP minister chose to hit out at the Congress and the activists for blaming the government to operationalise the RP-2021.
“Regional plan is your work. This is not my baby. This is your baby. It was your demand to make RP-2021 operational,” he said pointing to the opposition benches.
He said the government’s priority was planned development and to achieve that goal a clear decision was to be taken.
“This regional plan was formed through consultative process. RP-2021 is now operationalized. This RP has checks and balances. And all those who agree will be taken on case to case basis,” he said.
Stating that RP-2021 was notified in November 2011, the TCP minister said the then architects who were involved in the process have turned activists now.
He said the corruption charge on his department was unsubstantiated and people of a party who failed to make a mark in the election were simply raising issues.
“These guys are anarchists. Don’t get influenced by them. We are targeted only because we formed this government,” he said.
Sardessai admitted the regional plan has some good and bad points and to keep out the bad points, the government has adopted some checks and balances.
“Wherever necessary, we will correct the mistakes and give justice to common man,” he said.
On the Planning Development Authority, he said the opposition was simply raising issues without any valid reasons.
Reeling out figures, he said members of Congress who were earlier heading PDAs were on permission-issuing spree.
He said former Congress MLA Agnelo Fernandes has been labelling PDA as “pida”, but when he was chairman of NGPDA, he presided over 16 meetings and issued 496 permissions.
Similarly, former Congress MLA Victoria Fernandes chaired 34 meetings as chairperson of Mormugao PDA and issued 405 permissions, he said.
He further disclosed that Congress MLA Nilkant Halarnkar chaired 15 meetings of NGPDA and cleared 808 permissions, while Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginald Lourenco, who was chairman of NGPDA, issued 288 permissions
He further said that when the bar owners were affected due to Supreme Court ban on bars, PDAs helped to resolve problems of a lot of bar owners.
On the Outline Development Plan (ODP), the minister said all ODPs will be framed after following due process of law.
He said Congress member, Aleixo Reginald Lourenco, could only see constructions coming up in Goa but the construction also fetched revenue.
Sardessai said that by way of infrastructure tax, the TCP department collected Rs 72 crore in 2016-2017, while it dropped to Rs 30 crore in 2017-2018 and so far, Rs 15 crore has been collected in 2018-2019.
“We are actually putting construction industry in disruption. It may be because of RERA or it may be because of over activism. But even legally cleared projects are being stopped. It may be because of anything. One issue remains, investment confidence in Goa is going down,” Sardessai said.
“Whoever may be in the government. But investment confidence should not go down. Goans should not be seen as someone who make contracts and then go back on their word,” he added.
