the goan I network
PANAJI
The Government of Goa has decided to ‘activate’ the frozen Regional Plan 2021 which was ‘suspended’ by the then chief minister Manohar Parrikar in 2012, with Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai, who announced the decision through a press note, saying it was a decision that will help a large number of people “who have been anxiously waiting to construct a shelter for personal use.”
“The government has decided to implement the provisions of Regional Plan 2021 which have been kept on hold since June 4, 2012,” Sardesai said.
“The government has been toying with the idea of rectifying Regional Plan for Goa 2021 for quite some time. Permissions were being granted only for lands under settlement developable zones as per both the regional plans. This has resulted in hardships to members of the public as a contradiction of the zoning in both the plans had rendered problems for many plots even for personal housing,” Sardesai explained.
“The development of land zoned under settlement zones, commercial zones or industrial zones or institutional zones as per the Regional Plan for Goa 2021 will now be permitted as per its merit for uses permitted in the respective zones by following a transparent process,” Sardesai said.
Each development permission received by the taluka level offices will examine the settlement character of the land and its surrounding, its access conditions, the nature of the lands and the permissibility of development as per the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations.
Each development permission which is being sought as per the RP 2021 will also be scrutinized by the Forest and Agriculture Departments in case the area of the land is more than 5,000 m2.
Further Sardesai clarified that land, even if they are marked as settlement in the RP2021 but if they are low lying paddy fields, water bodies, khazan lands, flood-prone areas, land having a slope gradient more than 25%, forest land including private forest land, land within the buffer zone of wildlife sanctuaries, and no development zones as per the CRZ notification will not be permitted.
“The one issue that is about land which has been classified as a settlement which has been omitted from the settlement zone in Regional Plan 2021. This matter will be addressed shortly by amending the TCP Act to enable rectification or minor changes in the Regional Plan in the next session of the Assembly,” Sardesai said.
Sardesai’s final announcement could raise eyebrows as it raises the possibility of unbridled discretion in the hands of politicians and officials of the Town and Country Planning Department which could once again lead to haphazard development, which Sardesai himself has said he was against.
The Regional Plan 2021 was kept in abeyance by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who repeatedly promised that he and his government would draft a new Regional Plan claiming that the previous one drafted by the Congress was bad. However, Parrikar never got down to drafting a new Regional Plan even six years after he promised that it would be done, leaving the state in the state of limbo.
