NCESS assures to submit draft plan in Jan 2025
PANAJI
In the absence of a notified coastal zone management plan (CZMP) 2011 under the 1:4,000 scale, uncertainty looms over completion of the 2019 plan by January, next year. The Thrivananthpuram-based National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS) has now informed the State that by January, 2025, it would be in position to submit only the draft plan, for seeking public suggestions and inputs.
After missing out on two deadlines – October 2023 and May 2024, the Goa Government, in June, this year, informed the National Green Tribunal, that NCESS, appointed to draft CZMP 2019 has informed that the coastal plan would be completed by January 2025.
Speaking to The Goan, Director Environment Johnson Fernandes said that NCESS has informed that by January, next year, the draft plan would be submitted to the State, which would then be placed before the public for their inputs.
He also confirmed that the State is still awaiting communication from the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) over updated CZMP 2011. “We have not received any communication from the Centre. The updated plan needs to be notified,” he said.
Notifying CZMP 2011 under the 1:4,000 scale is a crucial step ahead of drafting a new plan based on CRZ notification 2019.
“NCESS has already commenced the ground work,” he said. Sources informed that the agency is currently working on 1:25,000 scale as per CZMP 2011.
The NCESS has been provided with data like shapefiles of bridge, harbour, port, ferry, survey plots, municipal and panchayat boundaries with names, tenurial status of mangroves for removing the mangrove buffer from private land, list of islands, land use shapefiles of the approved CZMP 2011.
There has been a delay of almost five years since the CRZ notification 2019 was notified – the Rules and Regulations of which are currently not applicable to Goa in the absence of the plan.
State had first missed out the October 31, 2023 deadline set by the National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA), following which the MoEF&CC stopped granting permissions under CRZ 2011 for developmental projects in the State.
State had later sought time till May 31, 2024 to complete the plan; however in the absence of updated CZMP 2011 based on 1:25,000 scale, the process of new plan was halted.
Last month, State forwarded the updated CZMP 2011 based on the 1:4,000 scale to MoEF&CC for approval and notification. The CZMP 2011, based on the 1:25,000 scale, was notified on September 6, 2022.
