Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: Soon after facing flak in the recently- concluded Assembly over illegal development, the Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant chaired the meeting of the State Disaster Management Committee and announced a three-pronged strategy to avoid landslides in future.
Addressing the media after the meeting, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant announced that the State is serious about the issue of landslides and flooding.
“We do not want Goa to become second Wayanad and that is the reason we have sat together to decide about how we want to go ahead. We are now planning for the next 50 years,” he said.
Sawant acknowledged that after 2022, the State should have started the work in this regard.
“I am sorry to say, we are late to wake up. This work should have been done long back. Nonetheless, we are now going to achieve the target with double the speed,” he said.
Three-pronged strategy
The Chief Minister announced that the Goa Disaster Management Committee has been given a months extension and it will look into all the illegalities underway in Goa.
“The Committee members will prepare a stability report of villagers in low-lying areas. The committee members will visit areas like Sanguem, Canacona and Quepem and immediately stop any illegalities like hill-cutting underway,” he said.
He said the committee will involve the local communities in this.
Secondly, he said the committee will issue guidelines and advisories to all the departments like Revenue, TCP, and panchayat etc on Economic Sensitive Zone or NDZ or CRZ areas.
“The departments will have to strictly adhere to advisory by experts,” he said.
He said for this the committee will hold a brainstorming session next Friday for all HoDs on landslide issues.
Thirdly, he said the government will set up a monitoring system under the district Collector to look into illegalities.
“Talathis, Mamlatdars and police inspectors of the area will work under the collector to identify any illegalities and act or bring to notice of the collector, who will have to issue an order for any illegalities to stop,” he said.
Sawant said if illegalities are not reported the talathis and mamladars will be held responsible for the same.
“We have taken the help of the National Disaster Management Committee which will help us with the early warning system in sensitive areas,” CM stated.
Finally, he said the State will now appoint the Disaster Management Authority, wherein some officers will only work on disaster management.
“They will have just to monitor illegalities round the year,” he stated.
