At last; RP-21 is open for public, to suggest and rectify
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 01 December 2015 14:12 IST
The Regional Plan 2021 has been thrown open for public suggestions and rectifications, from today, for 30 days.
The RP-21, notified during the Congress regime, was kept on hold as soon as the Bharatiya Janata Party government had come to power in March 2012.
If passed this year, the plan prepared normally for a decade, will last only for six years.
A public notice issued by Chief Town Planner S Putturaju states that village panchaayts, municipal councils and general public can file their comments or rectifications by 30 December.
Respective taluka settlement level plans of village panchayats and municipal councils will be made available for inspection in respective taluka-level offices of Town and Country Planning, besides its district-level offices at Mapusa and Margao.
The department had received comments and suggestions also in 2011 (till 20 December), a list of which has also been displayed by the authorities at the TCP offices.
The public notice has stated that the same comments or rectifications suggested earlier need not be filed once again by the same people, but fresh ones.
BACKGROUND
The RP-21 has been an outcome of a state-wide historic agitation raised by the people of Goa in 2006, under the banner of Goa Bachao Abhiyan, against proposed RP-11
The RP-11 was drafted during Pratapsing Rane’s Congress regime, when Babush Monseratte was the town and country planning minister.
Rane had to scrap RP-11, which had made all kind of disastrous plans to convert major part of Goa’s greenery and fields into a huge settlement zone, converting Green Goa into Concrete Goa.
The Congress government, then headed by Digambar Kamat, had constituted a Task Force under the chairmanship of late Charles Correa, internationally renowned architect of Goan origin.
The draft was thrown open for public suggestions and rectifications in November 2011, based on which the final draft was prepared by the State Level Committee, headed by then CM Digambar Kamat.
While the Congress government notified RP-21, people protested against it, pointing out several errors and terming it builder-friendly.
The SLC at that time had refuted the allegations, stating with facts and figures that they had released only 29 per cent of the land for conversion, from what was actually asked by all the villages.
But the controversy continued while the then opposition BJP made it an election issue, assuring the people of Goa to scrap the plan and draft a new one, if brought to power.
The GBA had opposed scrapping of RP-21.
However, after coming to power, then BJP chief minister Manohar Parrikar froze the RP-21 partially, while assuring to reframe it within six months.
Though the plan has not been finalised even after over three and a half years, the BJP government implemented major suggestions of RP-21 like protecting eco-sensitive zones and the categorisation of village zones into VP 1 and VP 2.
It is still not told by the government when the plan would be finalised after receiving suggestions till 30 December.
