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Wide Roads Will Lead to Demolition of Houses: PCF

  • The Pilerne citizens' forum (PCF) on Tuesday urged all Goans to participate in the massive rally at Azad Maidan, Panaji, at 2.30pm on December 16 to demand the denotification of the Regional Plan (RP) 2021.Addressing mediapersons, the PCF continued its tirade against RP 2021 and a section of the public who want the government to only rectify the errors in the plan without denotifying it. "Under what law can you rectify faults in a notified plan without denotifying it first?" PCF president Prakash Bandodkar sought to know.PCF coordinator Paul Fernandes slammed the town and country planning department's recent public notice with a clarification on the RP 2021. Referring to road widths, the notice states, "No roads will be made by demolishing any existing houses or compound walls." But the second point states, "Only in the event of any development proposal, the necessary setbacks for the plot will have to be maintained as per the plan by the applicant."
  • Fernandes said a newspaper notice making such assurances does not have the legal sanctity of a notification.The PCF pointed to a TCP circular of August 29, 2008, which stated that "no NOCs for development/construction or subdivision/conversions, etc shall be issued until and unless required road/access as per the regulations for the particular level of development (proposed) is physically available on the site. Hence no NOCs are to be granted bsed on the proposed road-widening and roads".
  • But contradicting that, a notification of August 4 stated that "permission for construction shall be granted to all projects based on proposed road widths as per the prevalent ODPs/RP. Further, at the time of approval of development plans, a minimum of 6m-wide right of way should be available on the site. This shall be applicable only for multi-family dwelling units and not for single-family dwelling units".Fernandes pointed out that with 3m setbacks on either side, the road would then be 12m wide. He said that in view of such notifications, a newspaper clarification would be of no use and that people's houses and compound walls might come in for demolition. tnn

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