Rane says no RP for Goa anymore, planners worried

Panaji: Town and Country Planning (TCP) minister Vishwajit Rane said that a fresh Regional Plan will not be drafted and that the taluka-level zonal plans will replace the Regional Plan. Rane’s idea has sparked consternation among urban planners and environmentalists, given the fear that such a proposal will continue the current trend of piecemeal conversion of land.
Speaking to a local TV channel, Rane said that the government will not draft a new Regional Plan and will henceforth rely on zoning plans. He also said that he has no strength to steer the preparation of a Regional Plan to replace RP2021.
“As far as we are concerned, there will be no Regional Plan in the state of Goa because the Regional Plan 2021 was the biggest scam by the State Level Committee. It will be my view that we should strictly go by zoning plans with professional consulting agencies on board and move forward. This will be applicable to all ODPs and zoning plans,” said Rane.
However, this has created confusion among urban planners, architects and environmentalists, who question if there is any legal basis for dropping the Regional Plan process.
“The Goa Town and Country Planning Act clearly states that zoning plans must conform to the broad framework of a regional plan,” said urban planner Tahir Noronha, who is presently working with the city of Detroit, Michigan, as a planner.
Director of Goa Foundation, Claude Alvares, appears to have his own share of misgivings, though he is in favour of zonal plans steering the state’s development process.
“Goa Foundation has always stood for zoning plans to be prepared from the ground up by villagers and locals and not by consultants who come from Delhi or Dharwad and use autoCAD. The first thing that the TCP needs to resolve is who is going to prepare the zonal plan,” said Alvares.
Nearly six months earlier, Rane had appointed US-based architect Vinayak Bharne to guide the planning process in Goa, and environmentalists are questioning if Bharne agrees with Rane’s plan.
“The minister has suggested that the zonal plans will begin in Pernem, which is scary. There is so much speculation and rampant conversion in those areas, and most of it is without any planning process. Right now, it is like, name your price and you get land conversion,” said an architect.
Noronha, who is also studying urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan, said that he has not come across any successful model or a case study of urban planning based on the model that Rane is proposing.
“I have never heard of a scenario like this. The current understanding of a zoning plan is that it is a detailing out of a RP. When he says that he will get rid of the regional plan and rely on zoning plans, then there is no legal framework to do this,” said Noronha.
In 1981, when policymakers and urban planners began drafting the RP2001, the aim was to promote coastal tourism as the state’s economy was struggling. RP 2011 turned out to be a public planning disaster and was scrapped after statewide protests. In 2007, when policymakers and the State Level Committee began working on RP2021, they realised that the coastal areas were overpopulated and had reached their carrying capacity, said an architect.
“They decided to pivot to the hinterlands to create more infrastructure in Goa’s rural areas,” said the architect.
“We need to see if statutorily the zonal plan can replace the regional plan. Though they have already brought in the amendments for zonal plans,” said Alvares.