HERALD - OPINIONATED 12/02/2009 RP 2021 is a fraud There appears to be a systematic campaign launched by politicians and land sharks. The new mantra chanted persistently is that "people should not be negative'. People of Goa are even accused of givng excuses to buy more time on the participatory consultative process for RP 2021. Some politicians express unfounded fears that after all the extensions the people will once again oppose the RP and that this may compel the courts to intervene. The threat about industrialists approaching the courts which was put in circulation after the RP 2011 was scrapped has once again made its appearance. Two years after such threats no one has yet gone to court. The reasons are obvious. The preparation of the RP 2021 under the present TCP Act, 1974 is a fraud on the people of Goa. Without putting District Plans in place the government is in a hurry to bulldoze the RP 2021 by mere tokenism which it cleverly interprets as participatory planning. Simultaneously, even before the RP2021 is put in place, another totally independent parallel window in the garb of ODP has been opened up to keep scope for future manipulations on land-use. This is a clever ploy by the government to create another route to circumvent whatever gets blocked by the RP 2021. Villages could later be dragged under the ODP and land use changes made depending on the interests to be served. Villages will suddenly be pulled into ODP areas and urban development rules imposed as was done with Porvorim that was brought under PDA for 6 months and withdrawn once clearances were given to select projects by the erstwhile Manohar Parrikar government which shamelessly boasts about good and clean governance. There is now confusion among the public as to which rules apply in the Village Panchayat areas and the huge cemented monsters being erected along NH17 are visible to the naked eye. Even some within Task Force on RP 2021 now find themselves confused. Some of them in a bid to avoid embarassment are now claiming that they were not given the required base-line data by some departments. The question that naturally arises is, why did this Task force also not submit an inconclusive draft RP 2021 to the government stating the facts? Why was it trying to market this draft RP 2021 as complete and better than the RP 2011 until the people called the hoax? Therefore, unless the draft RP 2021 is rejected at this very stage and a new TCP Act put in place with the provisions of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendment with the TCP department's wings clipped to size, there can be no salvation for the people of Goa. The tumour within the TCP department has grown malignant and is choking every possible space left for goans to breathe. The 'dalals' within the corridors of he TCP are definitely not going to give peace to goans as is evident with the latest hide and seek being played over the so dubbed participatory process on RP 2021. Suddenly, at the fag end of the fake participatory exercise on RP 2021 the villagers of Salvador do mundo, Penha de Franca and Socorro have unearthed a fact that several parts of their village still remain under an ODP even though their inclusion in the PDA was denotified several years ago. The TCP has now reluctantly pulled out the plans and are releasing them to the Village Panchayats at the last moment. Why were these facts not revealed at the first stage itself? Why were the people made to go through the torturous exercise of checking the draft RP 2021? Why were these areas not demarcated in the Village plans released to the public. Whether our observations may be dubbed negative or that of a fatalist, the fact is that the universal planning and development norms are openly being flouted in the preparation of the RP2021. The Article 243 ZD of the Constitution of India is being deliberately ignored by the government which claims that it is for the 'aam admi' but is only softly killing the very 'aam admi' to further the interests of real estate lobbies. If the RP 2021 is allowed to be finalized under the present out-dated TCP Act, it's fate will be just like that of the RP 2001 wherein around 1000 land-use changes were notified within a span of just five years. The government wil have to prepare the District Plans very soon due to the growing pressure form the union government. Therefore it appears that the government wants to seal the people's right to prepare their socio-economic and spatial plans by hurriedly approving the RP 2021. If we Goans cannot realise these naked facts then we are doomed. The RP 2021 if finalised will drive the final nail into the coffin of "Amchem Goa' . Soter D'Souza
