HC issues notice to MoEF & CC on a PIL challenging a part of the amendment notification on HTL, khazans in Goa.

This PIL writ petition is filed for the rehabilitation of Goa’s ecological endowment, ‘the khazans’. The khazan system is unique to Goa and due to it, a vast farmland (reportedly 18,000 hectares, or thereabouts) has been literally reclaimed from the sea, through the sheer ingenuity of our forefathers. The protection of the khazan system and its embankments is a mandatory requirement in view of climate change and expected sea level rise.

 

However a recent amendment dated 1st May 2020 to the CRZ Notification 2011 — which was introduced in connection with the demarcation of the High Tide Line in the CRZ areas in which khazan lands exist — erroneously classifies mangroves found within the khazan areas as CRZ IA and to be protected as such. The impugned amendment ostensibly (and in good faith) seeks to provide the blanket protection offered to all mangroves in the CRZ notification to those mangroves which have grown within the khazan lands as well. However, in relation to the khazans, mangroves can only be encouraged and protected outside the khazan bunds, not within.

The PIL claims that mangroves within the khazans are a result of mismanagement of the embankments and sluice gates. They are therefore an undesirable development not intended. If they are protected, the khazan areas cannot be rehabilitated. The PIL does not challenge the definition of the HTL in the State of Goa, introduced by the same amendment.

Hence the petitioner is seeking deletion of only a part of the clause of the Amendment Notification 2020, on grounds that it is contrary to the objectives of the CRZ notification.