“While the government asserts that it is merely protecting homes from the wrecking ball, the opposition sees something far more sinister: a green signal to legalise illegal constructions, particularly those allegedly owned by non-Goans, potentially eroding Goa’s land rights and cultural heritage.
The passage itself was dramatic, but telling. The House was adjourned twice after chaos erupted, with Opposition MLAs storming into the well.
There was shouting, sloganeering, and even a sit-in protest outside the Assembly gates.
Yet, after all this sound and fury, the Bill was passed without substantive debate on the floor.
If the opposition was convinced the legislation would harm Goans, why did the fight end with a procedural whimper rather than a sustained legislative blockade?”
The passage of the Goa Regularisation of Unauthorised Construction Bill, 2025 has once again thrown the spotlight on the uneasy intersection of governance, legality, and public trust in the Assembly.
Ostensibly aimed at giving relief to thousands of Goans whose homes risk demolition due to technical violations, the legislation has been met with both fierce criticism and equally strong defence.
Yet, the question that looms large is not just what was passed, but how it was passed — and whether the Opposition truly fought to block it or simply provided the government with a safe passage.
The Bill amends the 2016 Act to widen the scope of regularising unauthorised constructions, including those on comunidade lands – a sensitive and historical form of communal land ownership unique to Goa.
While the government asserts that it is merely protecting homes from the wrecking ball, the opposition sees something far more sinister: a green signal to legalise illegal constructions, particularly those allegedly owned by non-Goans, potentially eroding Goa’s land rights and cultural heritage.
The passage itself was dramatic, but telling. The House was adjourned twice after chaos erupted, with Opposition MLAs storming into the well.
There was shouting, sloganeering, and even a sit-in protest outside the Assembly gates.
Yet, after all this sound and fury, the Bill was passed without substantive debate on the floor.
If the opposition was convinced the legislation would harm Goans, why did the fight end with a procedural whimper rather than a sustained legislative blockade?
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant insists that the law will benefit 35,000 homes, of which 30,000 belong to Goans, with strict conditions such as mandatory consent from comunidade bodies, fines, and eligibility criteria that limit regularisation to houses older than 15 years as of February 28, 2014.
He also cites judicial orders from the High Court and the National Green Tribunal as the trigger for the Bill, suggesting that without it, homes, some four decades old, would face demolition.
On paper, these safeguards sound reassuring. In practice, the devil lies in the details of implementation, where Goa’s track record is far from spotless.
The opposition’s central fear – that this Bill will open floodgates for regularising dubious constructions by outsiders – cannot be dismissed.
Comunidade lands have been the target of encroachment and questionable deals for decades, often enabled by local political patronage.
Once regularised, such structures gain not only legal protection but also the right to be sold, often at a steep profit, accelerating the ongoing transformation of Goa’s landscape from a unique cultural ecosystem into a generic, high-density real estate market catering to the highest bidder.
Here lies the deeper concern: regularisation laws, while framed as humanitarian measures to protect long-standing residents, can become Trojan horses for speculative development.
The government may argue that it has imposed limits — 500 sq. m. in panchayat areas, 600 sq. m. in municipal zones – but these caps are generous enough to cover large villas, not just modest family homes.
In this light, the Opposition’s failure to force a clause-by-clause debate in the House is troubling.
Creating pandemonium is not the same as mounting a parliamentary defence. Walking out or staging protests outside the Assembly might make for good optics, but it does nothing to slow or scrutinise the legislative process.
When the noise subsides, the net result is that the Bill sails through – exactly what the ruling benches want.
The government, for its part, cannot take moral cover solely behind numbers like “30,000 Goan homes.” If it truly wishes to protect locals, it must ensure rigorous verification mechanisms, transparency in granting regularisation, and public access to the list of beneficiaries.
The comunidade consent process must be insulated from political pressure and monetary influence, else it risks becoming a rubber stamp.
In the end, whether the Bill is remembered as a lifeline for Goans or a land grab in legislative disguise will depend entirely on its enforcement. But one thing is certain: the manner of its passage raises uncomfortable questions about the robustness of Goa’s democratic process.
Did the government bulldoze it through with brute majority, or did the Opposition simply play its part in a scripted drama, offering more theatre than resistance?
If both sides truly believed the stakes were as high as they claimed, then Goans deserved a far more substantive, transparent, and accountable debate than what they got.
Anything less undermines not only the comunidade system but also the faith of the people in their elected representatives – a cost that no Bill, however well-intentioned, can afford to regularise.
