Goa government withdraws coastal zone management plan

Bowing to growing Opposition pressure, the Goa government temporarily withdrew the draft Goa Coastal Zone Management plan on Friday.

It has directed the scientists of the Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Zone Management (NCSCZM) to rework the draft.

After angry MLAs across party lines criticised the draft plan, during a formal presentation made to them by an agency at the State Secretariat, Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral told reporters that the plan would be reworked and public consultation session, which was scheduled for July 7, would be postponed until further notice.

"There are deficiencies in the draft plan. Scientists from the NCSCZM were not able to convince the MLAs about the level of detailing in the plan, how can such a plan go for public consultation," Cabral told reporters.

"We have asked the scientists to go back to the drawing board and make changes, especially related to the clear demarcation of the High Tide Line and get back to us,” Cabral also said.

The draft plan is a key document, which demarcates zoning and regulation of the Coastal Regulation Zone, which determines areas where development and construction activity can be carried out and ecologically sensitive areas which are beyond the scope of development.

Over the last couple of weeks, green activists, as well as Opposition parties in the coastal state, have been demanding the withdrawal of the draft plan, claiming it would facilitate a fresh wave of constructions in Goa’s coastal areas.

Claude Alvares, who heads Goa Foundation which is one of the top green NGOs in the state, had claimed that the Goa government did not even possess authorised maps of the previous 1996 Coastal Zone Management plan for Goa, which made it impossible to identify comparative changes in the current draft plan.

The Congress has welcomed the government’s decision to withdraw the current draft plan, with state Congress president Girish Chodankar claiming that there were “serious discrepancies and flaws” in it.

“We hope that a comprehensive plan will now be prepared, by taking into confidence all stakeholders and the people of Goa,” Chodankar told DH on Friday.