Margao: The Orlim gram sabha, on Sunday, called for a carrying capacity study of the village and raised concerns over omissions in the draft Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 2019, particularly the absence of khazan lands, ponds and other No Development Zone (NDZ) areas.
The demand emerged during discussions on a proposal placed before the meeting, where members said such a study would help assess the village’s resources and development limits.
“Once this report is done, we can properly gauge what resources are there in our village, and get an idea of where we stand. If there is a difference in opinion on the report, we can always review it. We cannot have high-rise buildings in our village because we have to maintain the identity of our village,” said gram sabha member Kim Miranda.
She also raised the issue of many low-lying areas being filled up and said that this may result in disasters in the future.
“Garbage is another problem facing our village as well as sewage,” said Miranda.
Sarpanch Simon Pereira said the panchayat had begun work on initiating the study but was facing challenges in securing funding and obtaining responses from the state government.
Miranda also raised concerns about the draft CZMP.
“The draft sent to us is not the plan that we had sent. We don’t want our river to be included in the MPA. Our khazan lands have not been shown in the plan. Another factor that considering our village’s topography,the no development zone has to be maintained at 100m and not reduced to 50m,” she said.
Pereira said, the panchayat had identified 11 issues including topography and MPA limits.
He said a comparison of the village-prepared plan and the draft plan would be sent to state authorities.
The gram sabha also discussed issues such as trade tax and house tax.
