PRESS NOTE

1. The Constitution of India was amended in 1992 (73rd for Rural India and 74th for Urban India) to ensure Down-top Participatory Governance (through Municipalities and Village Panchayats) with the support of on-going Top-down Legislative and financial dispensations through the Center and the States of the Union.

2. Accordingly, critical instruments pertaining to Local Governance were changed or otherwise updated across India by the States so as to address the Constitutional Amendments and under which elected Local Authorities had to be in place without being superceeded and where 18 subjects of Governance were deemed mandates of Municipalities and 29 subjects of Village Panchayats.

3. However on the crucial subject of use of land and the permissible intensity of such use, the sole State instrument mandated for this purpose i.e. the State Urban and Regional Planning and Development Acts or equivalent have at best sporadically addressed the epoch-making Constitutional Amendments of 1992.

4. The State of Goa is no exception despite a 1996 model Urban and Regional Planning and Development Plans Formulation (UDPFI) guidelines as recommended by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India and subsequently stress on Governance reforms (2002) as a prerequisite for accessing JNNURM funds.

5. It was therefore gratifying to note that Government have at last constituted a Committee (2010) to propose a new/ amended Town and Country Planning Act (no time-frame has been indicated in the notification). At the same time it is disturbing to note that the Government have in the current session tabled an Amendment to the current Act despite constituting a Committee for its comprehensive review and amendments.

6. Over the past several years, the CSJP, after a sustained study of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments and several State Instruments of the Union pertaining to Local Governance and access and use of land with differentially capped intensities, propose herein an appropriate Development Planning Law for Goa in critical aspects in sync with the Constitution of India. We trust that this would help the Government appointed Committee in this long over-due exercise. We also hope that these recommendations gets wide publicity for debate leading to a fine tuning of the CSJP recommendations so as to hasten the report of the Government Committee towards an acceptable Development Planning Act in place.

7. These recommendations are in two parts:

a. The National and the State context for the Act

b. Key aspects that need being in place as part of the Act

8. The critical aspects addressed in these recommendations are:

a. The creation of a Goa Development Planning Board composed entirely of elected representatives and which Board is required to ensure that the spatial use and intensity of land is in sync with socio-economic investment development through the State Planning Board that coordinates sectoral developments and interests;

b. The functions and powers of the Board and the facilitating role of the Chief Planner and his/ her Department is accordingly spelt out

c. The definition and broad contents of the Development Plans (20 year perspective, 5year programmes and annual budgets) and comprising of inter-linked District Development Plans, Settlement Plans for Municipalities and Village Panchayats and of Electoral Ward Plans are accordingly spelt out.

d. An additional function to District Planning Committees (DPCs) to process District Development Plans under this Act is recommended for greater coordination. An ideal composition of DPCs comprising of Elected Representatives is also proposed 

e. For Development Plans of Settlements (Municipalities and Village Panchayats) powers of delegation under this Act to Local Authorities is built in along with powers to prepare such plans singly or in combination.

f. For plan making, Districts are to be declared Planning Areas and Settlements are to be declared as Local Planning Areas. More importantly each District and their settlements would be their own Planning and Development Authority and plan formulation would be in outline form at start and final form after the suggestions/ objections process.

g. Plans for electoral wards would be part of settlement plans and all levels of Plans-District Settlement (Municipal and Village Panchayat) and Electoral wards would be interrelated in such a manner that Settlement Plans cannot function in isolation of the Districts, likewise Electoral Wards are to be basic components of Settlements.

h. The entire stress is on mapped information and proposals are to be freely available to the public so that land use and other changes occur in a transparent manner.

i. Finally, we believe that the above are within the Constitutional Amendment diktats of 1992 and for which the Government should be able to willingly process as custodians of the future of the State of Goa within the Union of India.

Fr. Maverick Fernandes
Executive Secretary, Council for Social Justice and Peace