REGIONAL PLAN FOR GOA 2021 What is a Regional Plan
Land use planning is a fundamental tool utilised for managing our land and our resources. It decides what activities can be carried out and where, with the least damage to the environment. However, in the process of reaching out to fulfil the needs and aspirations of the community, the Regional Plan also needs to ensure that natural resources are safeguarded and used with discrimination and environmental concerns are adequately addressed. Hence efficient land use planning demands a Regional Plan that can become the guiding policy document governing all activities in our State. The fact is that the Regional Plan covers issues that go way beyond land use. Thus, Goa’s Regional Plan is the most important legal document which determines the very future of our state. History of Goa’s Regional Plan It will be recalled that RP 2011, presented to the people to replace RP 2001 in 2006-2007,P was completely rejected by the people of Goa who found it to be a plan for the complete destruction of Goa. The people’s angry protests compelled the government to scrap RP 2011. The new Congress government, led by Digambar Kamat, prepared RP 2021 in 2008-09 and notified it in 2011. The 73rd and 74th amendments were grossly violated by turning people’s participation into a farce. The plan was not explained to the citizens. On the contrary, speculative demands from a few greedy individuals were encouraged. On studying the Plan, it was realized that RP 2021 was even more destructive than the scrapped RP 2011. Based on its manifesto promise to scrap RP 2021, the BJP were elected into power in 2012. However, after freezing RP 2021 in 2012, the BJP government is now trying to notify the same Plan prepared by Kamat, which they had promised to scrap before the elections. Why RP 2021 must be scrapped GOANS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT carried out exhaustive studies on RP 2021 and were dismayed to find that large swathes of settlement had been marked on sand dunes, khazan paddy fields, thickly forested areas, steep slopes and water bodies. In many villages, existing homes have not been shown, leaving the owners easy prey to real estate sharks. RP 2021 it appears, has been prepared for builders and people with an eye to earning huge profits from speculation with Goa’s scarce lands. The TCP seems to have forgotten that Goa is made up of agricultural, fishing, tribals, tenants and various other traditional communities who are equal stakeholders in the Regional Plan. In fact, RP 2021 does not consider Goans at all, but blindly caters to other categories of people and must be scrapped completely if Goa and Goans are to survive. This is what RP 2021 will do to Goa : • RP 2021 will cause large scale displacement of Goans from Goa. RP 2021 is specially designed to uproot indigenous Goans like agricultural tenants, fisherfolk, tribals, mundkars and others • RP 2021 will destroy most Goan villages for real estate speculation, thereby killing Goa’s development, sustainable economies, environment and culture. RP 2021 seeks to replace fisherfolk with marinas, tribals with eco-tourism and grazing lands with golf courses. • The Govt admits that RP 2021 was prepared without any data. The Govt has no data on our water, food & flood security, fertility and pollution of lands, water & sea, status of Goans, especially of SC, ST & OBC, why Goans are fleeing from Goa, why industries are sick, status of common lands, status of our communities, status of Goan identity, etc. MOST IMPORTANT, IT HAS NO IDEA OF GOA’S CARRYING CAPACITY. RP 2021 was prepared way back in 2008. Facts have changed since then & the old plan is irrelevant & obsolete. • RP 2021 lies blatantly that Goans working abroad send no money at all, and that farming, fishing, forests and animal husbandry contribute only 10% of Goa’s ‘GDP’. Instead, it falsely proclaims that most of the ‘GDP’ comes from factories, roads, banks, etc. Shockingly, RP 2021 also says in 3 places that Goans don’t like to work hard. RP 2021 is a plan to replace Goans with outsiders, to destroy Goa and to rob its resources. • RP 2021 does not consider the fact that rising sea levels due to climate change will submerge large parts of Goa. RP 2021 must take this into account, or else all coastal villages will be submerged or badly affected. • RP 2021 plans to destroy many more of our plateaus for industrial estates. Our plateaus are highly sensitive ‘water towers’ of the state. In the attempt to help robber barons make profits, RP 2021 will completely destroy water resources of the State, leading to the collapse of our economies and large scale migration out of the State due to lack of water. • RP 2021 requires large scale filling of low-lying fields and cutting of hills and forests. RP 2021 will destroy many of our private forests which are yet to be identified. This will cause colossal loss to Goa’s sustainable economies and ecological balance, tipping Goa into an environmental catastrophe. • RP 2021 blindly proposes to destroy our remaining agricultural resources. Though we get food from outside presently, this will not last long since climate change and scarcity of water threaten agriculture in the rest of India. For the survival of future generations, we must defend and restore Goa’s food sovereignty by scrapping the blind and suicidal RP 2021. • RP 2021 will increase our unbearable garbage and sewage pollution, water scarcity and electricity outages to catastrophic proportions. It also plans to build many roads, highways and by-passes through flood prone areas. Existing roads are shown as 10, 15 or 25 m wide, which will displace all Goans living in ancestral homes by the village roads. PLEASE ATTEND IN LARGE NUMBERS. PUBLIC MEETING TO DEMAND SCRAPPING OF RP 2021 AT LOHIA MAIDAN, MARGAO ON APRIL 22, 2016 AT 4 P.M.