PLEA FILED CHALLENGING PERMISSION GRANTED TO DABOLIM PROJECT IN HIGH COURT

Though Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA) and Save Our Slopes (SOS) through their collective effort have succeeded in getting the Chief Town Planner to issue stop hill-cutting instructions to the DLF project at Dabolim, a writ petition has been filed in the High Court challenging the permissions granted to the company.Goa Foundation and Edwin Mascarenhas, resident of Chicalim who obtained information under RTI filed a Public Interest Litigation in the High Court challenging the permissions on Wednesday.Following the instructions issued by chief town planner, hill cutting has been stopped as demanded by GBA and SOS, convenors of the two organisations Dr Sabina Martins and Audhut Naik respectively said at a press conference here. GBA treasurer Anand Madgavkar, joint secretary Miguel Braganza, members Dr Oscar Rebello and Aravind Bhatikar were also present.Naik explained that several corner meetings and public meetings were held in the villages of Chicalim, Dabolim, Sancoale and Cortalim jointly by SOS and GBA with the participation of other village level groups. A delegation of GBA and SOS which repeatedly called on the CTP had objected to the Town and Country Planning Department giving hill cutting permissions under Section 17-A of the Goa TCP Act, 1975 [as amended] despite the gradient of slope being more than 25%.As a consequence of the protest, the stop work instructions was given and a committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Deputy Town Planner Mr Bandodkar with a technical representatives of the SOS-GBA to physically verify the gradient of the hill slope which was not done before giving permissions.The joint technical team went for inspection and preliminary reports given by our surveyor stated that the property is thickly forested making it difficult to calculate slopes, Martins said adding that in the areas where trees were cut, the slopes were of more than 30%.The GBA and SOS have demanded that the hill cutting permissions be withdrawn in writing immediately. In the meantime, the Dabolim villagers are keeping a strict watch on the property to see that no hill cutting and tree felling takes place, Naik said.GBA declared that it would continue to challenge the “illegal permissions” given by various authorities for the project. The DLF project at Dabolim has got exemption from the conversion sanad on grounds that the area is shown under settlement in the ODP of Marmugao, even though the whole area has been shown as No Development Zone in the RP-21, Martins said.The project proposals were apparently kept pending with Mormugao PDA for more than three months without any examination of the proposal, thereby allowing it to be interpreted as “deemed permission” by the applicants, Saravati Builders/DLF, she added. GBA and SOS have demanded that the government take corrective action to revoke all permissions which has resulted in loss of revenue as well as set in motion the irreversible destruction of eco zones