Goa govt gets 30 days to give development plan timeline to local bodies

PANAJI: The high court of Bombay at Goa has given the director of panchayats and the director of municipal administration 30 days to issue directions with a timeline to panchayats, zilla panchayats and municipal councils to submit their respective development plans in accordance with the Goa Panchayat Raj Act and Goa Municipalities Act.
The court observed that according to Section 238 of the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, panchayats and zilla panchayats cannot avoid preparation of development plans. It also stated that there was no clarity on the number of panchayats or municipalities that have prepared development plans and submitted them to the district planning committees.
“Simply because no rules may have been framed under the provisions of the Panchayat Raj Act, 1994, in relation to the implementation of the provisions of Section 238, it cannot be said that there is no obligation to comply with the mandate of the section,” a division bench comprising justices Mahesh Sonak and M S Jawalkar said.
United Goans Foundation, which had filed a public interest litigation in the high court, stated that regional planning in the state has always been, and continues to be, a top-down bureaucratic exercise, disconnected from institutions of local democracy empowered under the Constitution.
“More than two decades after the passing of the 73rd and 74th Amendments, the petitioners find that these institutional frameworks for decentralised governance have not taken shape in Goa,” the petition stated, adding that the Town and Country Planning Act does not mandate that plans be prepared on the basis of public participation and merely asks for public comments in the form of suggestions and objections after they are prepared.
“This top-down bureaucratic approach has led to corruption in the TCP department,” the petition further stated.