Land conversions: Why fear the total figure?
Just how much land has been converted under his tenure in Goa and why is TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane reluctant to tell us?
The monsoon session of the Goa Legislative Assembly -- the longest session of the year -- came to a close this week with some interesting exchanges through which we learnt a lot of “trivia” like the fact that to repair the state’s innumerable potholes, the Goa government is spending Rs 16,000 per pothole and that it spent Rs 40-lakh buying ladoos (more money than it takes to build a house for a poor person) and that only two snakes died in the 107-odd forest fires that plagued the state in 2023.
But undoubtedly the state’s attention was focussed on the discussion on demands for grants for the Town and Country Planning Department and the Minister’s reply to understand what exactly is the government’s and the minister’s thinking on the issue and what are his responses to the questions raised. As such, this week’s newsletter will largely focus on this one story.
Land conversions: Why fear the total figure?
The discussion happened in the legislative assembly on Monday August 5, during the afternoon and evening sittings. And while there were some pertinent questions raised during the discussions including the amount, scale and dangers to land conversions in the state, the minister’s reply was bereft of any substantive response. What we got was a speech that used a lot of words but said very little. You are welcome to watch the reply speech at the link above.
For example when AAP MLA Venzy Viegas highlighted that 21.29 lakh sq metres of land were converted to settlement under section 17(2) of the TCP Act in 15 months and that 4.42 lakh were on the way to be converted under section 38(A) of the Act the minister Vishwajit Rane immediately interrupted him to ask him not to put “wrong” figures before the house. In fact, I’d encourage you to watch the full exchange here including the part where Venzy tables the figures and Vishwajit claims they are wrong here.
So what are the correct figures then?
Rane promised the House that he would place the complete figures before he began his reply. Instead when the time came, he wriggled out of the situation instead asking those from the opposition questioning him to meet him personally instead.
There’s a saying in reference to journalism that says: “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the window and find out which is true.”
It would be fine to apply this quote to the present situation as regards land conversions in Goa if there were competing claims as to how much land has been converted so far in the state. Instead, what we have is Vishwajit Rane’s own reply to AAP MLA Cruz Silva and MGP MLA Jit Arolkar listing out the number of conversions his department has allowed under the guise of ‘correction’ and later repeatedly interrupting Viegas quoting his figures to say they were wrong.
When I open the window and look outside I see Rane’s reply stating that 21.29 lakh square metres of land has been converted under section 17(2) of the TCP Act (so far) and another 4.42 lakh has been applied to be converted under section 39A. In effect, at the time the replies were submitted 25.71 lakh square metres of land were notified to be converted under 17(2) and 39A of the TCP Act. And this is just the beginning.
Here’s a breakdown of the figures
Under section 17(2) alone 2.40 lakh square metres of paddy fields, 9.47 lakh square metres orchards and 7.19 lakh square metres of no development slopes -- plots of land that had a gradient of 25% or more have been notified as settlement so far.
(The following includes some images so if you are reading this in your email, please enable the display of images.)
You’d think that with such a large scale operation there would be a mechanism in place to check whether an application is a genuine error or not. But no.
In reply to a question by Mandrem MLA Jit Arolkar, who sought to know the process followed by the department to examine the “legitimacy of an error and determine if it requires correction” Rane replied that applications are “scrutinised and decided as per the provisions of the Act and by adhering to Rules/Circular issued in this regard.”
When pressed on to reveal whether the Department has conducted an inspection in each case and if so to furnish details of all such inspections including names of officers conducting inspections with date of inspection and copy of the report along with copy of all file notings, minutes of the meeting in each of the applications under 17(2) approved by the Govt/TCP/TCP Board, all that the minister replied was that the “Department has inspected sites for all notified cases for affecting necessary corrections under Section 17(2) of the TCP Act.” No reports or dates of inspections were furnished.
Bit strange that they would keep no record of these site inspections, don’t you think?
Why is this happening now?
To understand this, we need to delve into a bit of history. If history doesn’t interest you, or you are already familiar with this, you can skip this part and go directly to the next subsection.
Goa’s Town and Country Planning Act became a law in 1974. It is perhaps the only state in the country that envisages having the development of the state mapped out on a plan called the Regional Plan. This plan has Goa’s geography mapped out including paddy fields, water bodies, hills, orchards, and village settlements as well as other planned development such as industrial estates, institutional areas like airports, ports, military facilities, hospitals, colleges etc.
The state’s first regional plan was drafted in 1986 and had a horizon period of 2001, which meant that it was to be valid until that year. Back then, however, the government could make arbitrary changes to the regional plan known as Gazette changes and if someone wanted to build on his property he could apply for a change of zone, get the land converted to settlement and proceed further for construction.
For a long time this wasn’t an issue as the number of applications were limited. However, by the turn of the century, things began to change as the pace of conversions sought began to rise substantially.
In a note issued in 2005, then Goa Secretary (Town Planning) Jayshree Raghuraman observed that “the crux of the problem in the (Town and Country Planning) Department has been the frequent change of land use in individual cases ranging from small plots to thousands of square metres of land, on the advice of the Town and Country Planning Board and with the approval of the government. This has not only led to haphazard development but resulted in mushrooming of concrete structures with scant regard to planning and land use norms.”
It was during a period of President’s rule in Goa during the year 2005 that the Goa governor on the advice of Chief Secretary Kiran Dhingra, who observed that “relaxations under section 17 of the TCP Act are not well founded in law” and as such, provisions of the TCP Law that allowed such individual changes were done away with.
Between 1986 and 2005 when the arbitrary provisions were taken away, 12.19 square kilometres of land (122-lakh square metres) of land were converted.
At the end of president’s rule, when the Congress government under Pratapsingh Rane came back to power in 2005 (Parrikar’s government fell after Digambar Kamat, Mickky Pacheco and Atanasio Monserrate and Pandurang Madkaikar switched to Congress) two people in the government Atanasio Monserrate and Vishwajit Rane (then not a MLA, but as the son of the Chief Minister) went about quite literally painting the town red. Goa’s Regional plan 2011 then at the drafting stage was completely altered to bring massive areas under settlement. Maps were redrawn just like a school child with a colouring book without even the pretense planning.
It sparked the rise of the GBA and the anti-RP 2011 movement that culminated in the scrapping of the RP 2011 and a broad based state level committee under Digambar Kamat and headed by famed architect and town planner Charles Correa who succeeded Pratapsingh Rane as Chief Minister to draft the present Regional Plan 2021.
The discretionary provision taken away during Governor’s rule was brought back in 2017 with Vijai Sardesai as Town and Country Planning minister who introduced 16B to bring back cases by case changes to the regional plan.
What does this mean for Goa?
Rane took charge of the Town and Country Planning Department in 2022. Since then, it appears, there is a rush to do one thing: Bringing back all the controversial changes to the land use map that were scrapped by the Digambar Kamat government as a result of the GBA protest back in 2007. All the red coded maps of the now scrapped RP 2011 are now being brought back piece by piece.
The Regional Plan 2021 that had the Eco I (khazans, forests and NDS) and Eco II (orchards, cultivable land, natural cover) zones locked in, is now being undone bit by bit.
Here’s a story I wrote last year when the amendments were first passed in the state legislative assembly that highlighted the potential challenges Goa could face with such massive development. But there’s more to it.
As the public meeting against the Bhutani project in Sancoale pointed out these projects will completely change the nature of a village. Imagine what a project that will involve 2000 swimming pools do to a village of 1500 residents. Besides being bigger than the village itself it will lead to the creation of a stratified society of high rollers living within and everyone else reduced to the margins while also destroying what is today a common resource into a private enclave for the rich. If the number of conversions that were sought to be done under the now scrapped section 16B of the TCP Act is any indicator the final figure will mean more than 1-crore square metres of land across the state will be converted over the next weeks and months unless it is stopped now.
The fear is very real that Goa, home to many of us, will soon be just a rich man’s playground bereft of its soul and bereft of the communities that make up Goa who will be pushed to the margins.
Till date despite rising public anger, there are no assurances from the government that any of these will be reversed. All that the TCP minister assured during the discussion was that he would address the points raised by the opposition. What does that mean for the cancellation of permissions and conversions as raised by the opposition? Your guess is as good as mine.
Demand for the drafting a new regional plan— given that the current Regional Plan 2021 has passed its horizon period — raised by opposition MLAs both within the Assembly as well as by the GBA outside was only met with non-committal response from the minister.
The reply also had some callous gems like “even if there is a landslide on the road you make it look like Wayanad” in response to concerns raised by opposition MLAs that conversion of hill slopes in Goa would make it the next Wayanad.
The onus now is on each one of us to apply the brakes on what’s happening and change direction.
That’s about it for this week and if you like my work, please sign up to receive weekly updates and spread the word among friends, family and those who might be interested.
Thanks once more for putting things in perspective. I hope people come together to act against those who are blind with greed and bending rules to their whims and fancies.