The Goa Government’s latest Gazette notifications raise serious concerns about the reclassification of paddy fields, sand dunes, water bodies and other legally protected areas as Non-Development Areas (NDAs). Gazette Notification No. 36/18/39A/Notification(12N)/TCP/2026/530 dated June 18, covering Sernabatim (Colva), illustrates the issue. The notification lists lands already protected under agricultural, tenancy, Communidade and CRZ laws as "Proposed Non-Development Zones (NDZs)" in Column 5, while Column 7 records the TCP Board’s "final decision" as Non-Development Areas (NDAs). This raises troubling questions. Why is the TCP Department claiming to protect land that is already protected? Why does the proposal refer to NDZ while the final decision changes it to NDA? More importantly, neither NDZ nor NDA exists under the Goa TCP Act, 1974, or its rules. On what legal basis has the TCP Board adopted this classification? The government must explain these inconsistencies instead of creating confusion. The unexplained shift from NDZ to NDA reinforces concerns over Section 39A and strengthens the case for scrapping it entirely.
ARWIN MESQUITA, Colva
