A mass protest by Goans against mega projects is scheduled to be held outside the Town and Country Planning (TCP) office at Patto in Panaji today. It won’t be wrong to say that there has been a sort of “people’s uprising” against mega projects. There is the Bhutani project in Sancoale village, the DLF project at Reis Magos, the Lodha projects at various locations, to name a few. Massive hill-cutting is underway allegedly without necessary permissions. Former Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu recently stressed the importance of determining Goa's carrying capacity to identify where development is appropriate. Carrying capacity is at best defined as the maximum number of people that can be supported by the environment of a particular area through optimum utilization of available resources. Water supply, sanitation, power requirement, health and educational facilities, security, waste management, waste water discharge, solid waste disposal are the aspects to be looked into while determining the carrying capacity of a particular locality. However in Goa it appears that mega projects are being sanctioned without giving a thought to the carrying capacity of the locality. This has resulted in protests by across the state.
