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  • 27/02/2007

Plans have to include all people

Mukund Gauns who owns about 4 ha of land in Caranzalem in Taleigao, used to grow paddy. "I grow vegetables now, I cannot cultivate paddy anymore because there is no drainage system. Now, I have to buy paddy to eat,' Gauns told Down To Earth. N S Dumo, president of Goa Su Raj, a political party, is disturbed about land being usurped without adequate compensation. "Finding alternate means of employment is not easy either,' he says.

Teleigao, incidentally, is Atanasio Monserrate's constituency. Better known as Babush, he is the former town and country planning minister; he resigned in January, indicted as the man behind regional plan 2011. Local residents told Down To Earth that he forced farmers out of a stretch of land and sold it to builders. A joggers' park is coming up, besides other glitzy developments. Farmers say they have been duped. "The minister came to us personally and asked us to move out. He promised us compensation. We had to give up our land and we are now suffering,' say Duttram Shirvoikar and Nona Shirvoikar, farmers evicted for the jogger's park. Another farmer-family was lucky to get compensation, but a paltry amount. "The minister gave us Rs 20,000 and he had the place sealed with mud. But the money is not enough. Agriculture sustained us much better. Now, we have to make do as labourers,' says Bharati Shirvoikar, an affected farmer. Similarly, Mangala Adkonkar from Bambolim says her family had been asked to move out for a range of plush hotels by the Bambolim beach. "Everyone is scared but even then we are not willing to give up our land. Despite living by the sea, we cannot fish anymore. The route to the beach has been barricaded by builders. They come and threaten us showing the gun,' she says.

But, as a Goan told Down To Earth, it is also important that there are gainers. "The grandsons of toddy tappers and fishermen are running into more money overnight than most elite Indians or Europeans earn in a lifetime.' At the same time, work opportunities are shrinking in this literate and highly urban state. No wonder the administration defends its much-hated regional plan, saying it expresses people's aspirations: of the 1,400-odd suggestions and objections it received from the public, as many as 1,350 were for change in zones. Many people simply wanted their residential areas, demarcated as agricultural land on plans, be regularised. They had to construct illegal structures, because plans were faulty and not up to date.

The problem also is that the law is never equal in the country. Ordinary people find their residences could be deemed illegal. They are often denied the right to put up a small guest house on their crz land or convert a small part of their orchard or agricultural land to build a guesthouse. But they see numerous instances when the rich and powerful were able to use clout and financial power to change their illegal use to legal by applying and obtaining conversion certificates.

So, who is planning? For whom? Interestingly, there is near consensus among protagonists and antagonists of the regional plan on the kind of development Goa needs. Industry representative, Datta Damodar Naik, executive committee member of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Down To Earth, "Tourism alone cannot support the state. Goa needs trade, retail, service industry, pharmaceuticals, it, horticulture and fishing. Cities should be planned as garden cities and satellite towns built with integrated transport system. Land estate should be implemented for low and medium cost housing.' Yatin Kakodkar, former chairman of cii, Goa Council, concurs, "There is severe water crisis in Goa, besides roads and garbage disposal. The government should first make arrangements for the present population."The Goa Bachao Andolan feels "development should take place but it must meet the needs of all in the state.'

The issue is how the planning is done; by whom and for what. The chief town planner has told the court that "in the good old days when a plan had to be prepared, a physical survey had to be carried out.' Now, modern technologies can do this work he added. But why were these not used to map land use and identify violators? So, much of the state's problems lie in this ambiguity. Much of the future answers will rest in ensuring the surveys are completed and that the ground-truth is used to establish the basis of future planning and action.

But the plan document is not the end. It is the beginning of the process of determining who will plan? And how local and affected people will be consulted in the process? And how they will drive the policy for the future? This is the nub of the Goa problem. The controversy over Regional Plan 2011 will not go away, if this is not recognised and changed. This is when the paradise will not go under the hammer.

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