PANAJI: The order of the high court of Bombay at Goa regarding the outline development plans (ODPs) for five prominent coastal villages — Calangute, Candolim, Arpora, Nagoa, and Parra — brings into sharp focus the long-standing allegations of arbitrary land conversion and procedural violations that have plagued the town and country planning (TCP) department.
This is not the first time the judiciary reversed the department’s policies. From putting on hold a circular on ODPs for the five villages to virtually striking down the TCP department’s power to unilaterally alter the zoning of private plots through Section 17(2) of the TCP Act, 1974, the courts have emerged as the battleground for Goa’s land politics. In most of these cases, the judiciary found the department’s actions procedurally flawed, environmentally negligent, or contrary to statutory planning norms, say activists who have taken up cudgels against the department.
The earliest large-scale expression of public distrust began with the Regional Plan 2011. Accusations of arbitrary zoning changes benefiting real estate interests led to the plan’s scrapping, triggering the formation of the task force for Regional Plan 2021. This exercise ran into allegations that large swathes of land were converted to settlement zones without public consultation, prompting govt to once again keep it in abeyance. Since then, successive BJP govts have tried to bring in piecemeal changes in the RP2021 in the guise of amendments designed to “correct” the errors.
Vijai Sardesai was the first to try making incremental tweaks through Section 16B of the TCP Act during his brief stint as TCP minister in 2018. When this was challenged in the HC, present TCP minister Vishwajit Rane rushed in Section 17(2) in the guise of correcting “inadvertent errors” in the RP2021. As public pressure mounted, and with Section 17(2) being challenged through a PIL, Rane brought in Section 39(A) for ease of land conversions. Under this, the TCP department’s chief town planner has been empowered to alter or modify the RP2021 and the ODPs.
According to Goa Foundation, 95% of the applications under Section 39(A) involve changes from orchard (2.4 lakh sqm) and natural cover zones (1.4 lakh sqm) to settlement. Meanwhile, on March 13, the HC read down Section 17(2) of the TCP Act. Justices M S Karnik and Nivedita Mehta minced no words when they immobilised the amendment, saying that it “virtually has the effect of mutilating the regional plan”. By then, the TCP department had already converted 26.5 lakh sqm. The HC order said that such large-scale conversion could have “disastrous consequences” on an ecosystem as fragile as Goa’s.The HC’s order on the ODPs is yet another indictment of the TCP’s flawed functioning, said an architect. “Money is being taken for land conversion, but nobody is talking about need-based planning. Govt must decide what happens to the zone changes that have been done till now,” the architect added.
The HC order comes after a series of back and forth between environmentalists, the TCP department, the HC, and the Supreme Court. In fact, while hearing a special leave petition by Goa govt against the Bombay HC’s order restraining construction based on the ODP for the five villages, Supreme Court Justice Satish Chandra Sharma told Goa’s counsel, “Please don’t turn Goa into a concrete jungle.”
The message never got passed down, with govt continuing to defend the ODPs in the HC. While these reversals brought uncertainty upon builders, investors, and landowners in Bardez—many of whom benefited from conversions in the ODP—the courts have signalled a zero-tolerance approach to irregularities in urban planning.
