the goan I network
MARGAO
Saying that the five-member technical committee constituted to operationalise the RP21 will go into all cases of irregularities cited by Goencho Avaaz, TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai on Friday sought to allay apprehensions of the people saying the Regional Plan 2021 is no threat to Goem, Goemkar and Goemkarponn.
He, however, hastened to add that the government will rectify all cases of conversion of eco-sensitive zones, including hills, khazans, low lying fields, into settlement in the RP21. He also spoke of justice to people whose land was marked as settlement in the RP01 and were now shown as orchard zone in RP21.
While lamenting that the society is forced to believe that the 2001 plan prepared in 1989 is better than the 2021 plan which was drawn up in 2009, Sardesai said a progressive society cannot be retrograde in planning when there’s a need for planned development.
Speaking to the media hours before the Lohia Maidan protest rally called by Goencho Avaaz, Sardesai said he is waiting for the public meeting to unveil the names of politicians who have benefitted from the Rp 21. “Let the list come... the five-member technical committee will certainly go into the illegalities and rectify the same. This plan was not notified by me. The RP21 is not my baby”, he said.
Asked to react to charges that the TCP Minister is in a tearing hurry to operationalise the RP21, Sardesai said “You have to be in a hurry always. Those who wait for the 1989 Plan are not worthy to be in public life in 2018. One has to be in tune with the future”.
To the accusation that the 16,000 objections lodged against the 2021 Plan were ignored by the TCP, he pointed out that majority of the objections, around 99 per cent, had come for change of zones from orchard to settlement.
Earlier addressing the inaugural session of the two day national workshop on National Building code of India 2016 & revised seismic codes at the Ravindra bhavan, the TCP Minister urged the technical experts attended the workshop to go and attend the Lohia Maidan meeting and listen to the speech of the speakers. “As a Minister, today is a time of challenge. The meeting that follows at the Lohia Maidan would be not attended by the intelligentsia and the experts. This is a challenge for the civilized society that non-technical people who are not aware of technical things try to teach us technical things”, he said.
