The state government has submitted the draft coastal zone management plan (CZMP) 2011 with corrections to the Union environment ministry for final approval and notification, state environment director Dashrath Redkar said on Tuesday.
“We are expecting them to call us for discussion before approving the plan for notification,” he told TOI.
The 2011 plan provides for protection to local fishermen and their houses that existed before the 1991 notification. “The state government will ensure their protection. The notification will in no way impact local fishing activity,” a senior official said. In April, the Union government had agreed in-principle to the state’s three demands that were creating hurdles in the finalisation of the coastal zone management plan – removal of the depiction of port limits, notification of CZMP on 1:4,000 scale, and removal of structures from the plan.
The Union government asked the state to make necessary corrections in the CZM and send it for notification. National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Chennai (NCSCM), which is preparing the CZM, in a letter to the state government had said that it is not the authority to remove structures from the cadastral data provided by Goa coastal zone management authority (GCZMA), and that NCSCM is also not able to identify the structures to be removed from the cadastral map.
The process of preparing the CZMP 2019 slowed down due to the monsoon session of the Goa legislative assembly. Redkar said that they would now call for presentations on the plan. The environment department had decided to invite the National Centre for Earth Science Studies, Kerala, to give a presentation on its preparation, as per the CRZ notification 2019. The state had approached six other agencies for preparing the plan. They include the Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad, Institute for Remote Sensing Anna University, Chennai, Institute of Wetland Management and Ecology Design, Kolkata, National Hydrographic, Dehradun, National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, and the NCSCM.
Four of these did not respond to the state government, two submitted their quotes, and one said that it is not in a position to take up the work. In October 2021, wary of repeated delays by Goa in finalising its CZMP, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had set December 31, 2021, as the final deadline for the state. Goa finally submitted its final draft of the CZMP to the Union environment ministry just a couple of days before the December 31, 2021 deadline set for the state by NGT.