NCSCM Affidavit Challenges GCZMA’s Stance on Goa Coastal Maps

Team Goemkarponn
Panaji: In an interesting development in the ongoing dispute over coastal zone management in Goa, the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) based in Chennai has filed a counter-affidavit with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Pune. This move is in response to objections raised by the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) regarding the Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) and Coastal Zone Management (CZM) maps.
The NCSCM, through its Acting Director Purvaja Ramachandran, has vehemently opposed the GCZMA’s objections, arguing that these challenges could undermine the legitimacy of the maps and the approvals granted by various authorities. The controversy centers around the scale of the maps, with the GCZMA initially recommending both 1:4000 and 1:25000 scale maps during a National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) convention in September 2022. However, the NCZMA ultimately recommended only the 1:25000 scale maps.
Despite this, the NCSCM had already prepared and submitted the final draft CZM maps at the 1:4000 scale to the GCZMA, which were expected to be published on their website. The NCSCM has rejected claims by the GCZMA that discrepancies in overlapping village boundaries on the 1:4000 scale maps needed to be addressed. According to the NCSCM’s affidavit, these discrepancies were never raised during the six-year preparation period from April 2016 to September 2022, nor were they flagged during the approval process by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).