Goa govt presses for special meeting with centre to discuss CZMP

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Panaji: Union Environment minister Prakash Javadekar will hold a special meeting in New Delhi within a fortnight to discuss the apprehensions raised by Goa government about the draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) for the coastal state.
State Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral who met Javadekar on Sunday in Panaji said that the apprehensions of the State government about the draft CZMP prepared by Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) were explained.
“The union minister was told about our apprehensions on the draft plan, mostly around the deciding the High Tide Line (HTL) for the State. He has said that he would be calling for high level meeting within next 15 days at National Coastal Coastal Management Authority by calling the officials of Goa Coastal Regulation Zone and NCSCM,” Cabral said.
Several MLAs had taken strong objection to the draft CZMP, which they had said that it was prepared without consulting the local population and considering the ground realities.
Cabral said that the union minister explained about the uniqueness of Goa, which makes it different from the rest.
During the meeting, Cabral handed over the memorandum to Javadekar listing out the exact position and expectation of the State from the centre while drafting the CZMP.
Cabral has pointed out that there is strong objection various various section to the draft CZMP, claiming that it is full of errors.
He said that if the proposed CZMP, 2011, does not take into consideration the issue of Khazan land, then the same will affect the people of Goa adversely for generations to come and therefore there is a need to do the same correctly, so that it remains for posterity.
“The Khazans of Goa together occupy an area of about 18,000ha of fertile lowlands and consists in general of four main components: bundh (dyke), manas (sluice gate) rice fields and poiim. During high tide, as the water level in the estuary starts rising, it exerts pressure on the shutters on the manas, forcing the shutters to close automatically thus preventing the brackish water from entering the Khazan,” the letter mentioned.

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