GCZMA begins appraisal process to compare draft coastal maps submitted by local bodies

NT NETWORK

Panaji

The Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority has started the appraisal process to compare the individual draft coastal maps submitted by local bodies with draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) prepared by the Chennai based agency National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management
(NCSCM).

The draft coastal maps prepared by 118 panchayats and eight municipalities in 2019 were forwarded to the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management for incorporation in the draft CZMP under CRZ notification, 2011.

But most of the village panchayats and municipalities were aggrieved with NCSCM for not incorporating their self prepared plans while preparing the draft CZMP.

The GCZMA on completion of the appraisal process will seek a justification from the NCSCM in case the draft CZMP prepared under the CRZ notification, 2011, does not attributes the changes with respect to the maps prepared by the local bodies.

During a recent public hearing many villages and municipalities in the state rejected the draft CZMP for ignoring the detailed and accurate plan produced by them. They say crucial details have been omitted in the draft plans, hindering effective public participation in the process.

The Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral recently told the Assembly that the GCZMA has received over 4000 objections and suggestions to the draft CZMP and self prepared plans from local bodies till date which will be compiled, compared, examined and recorded.

The Coastal Zone Management Plan was originally supposed to be prepared for all states by 2013, within two years of the 2011 notification. In the absence of these new plans, older plans prepared under the CRZ Notification, 1991, have been given extensions at least five times. Even today, sanctions for all coastal development are given based on a plan that is more than two decades old.

The villagers were taken aback at the changes in the maps, as they also took strong exception to the marking of the port limit area on the plan. 

Moreover representatives of various fishing communities complained that despite submitting maps prepared by the communities themselves, indicating community infrastructure and land use of coastal commons, the government had failed to reflect any
of this.

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