City
Epaper

Goa Environment Minister booed at Coastal Zone meet

By IANS | Updated: July 27, 2019 18:25 IST

Goa's Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral had to beat a hasty retreat from a meeting on Saturday to discuss the erroneous draft Goa Coastal Zone Management plan, after the audience booed him, did not let him speak and demanded that the draft plan be scrapped outright.

Open in App

This is the third time in the last two weeks that Cabral has been booed and forced to wind up his meetings in Goa's various sub districts to discuss Coastal Regulation Zone issues.

On Saturday, at the meeting held at Ravindra Bhavan in Margao town, Cabral was booed by a crowd of several hundred people, even before he could start speaking about the draft plan, which has already been flagged as "erroneous" by all the state's lawmakers, including Cabral himself last month.

"If the draft plan is full of errors, like Cabral himself is saying, why is he holding these public meetings with this faulty draft plan. It should be scrapped immediately and a new plan should be put together with popular participation," said Aam Aadmi Party Goa convenor Elvis Gomes, who was also present at the meeting.

The plan has been drafted by the Chennai-based National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management, a central government body.

The objective of the Coastal Zone Management plan is to identify the areas, which come under various zones graded by coastal regulation norms, in which construction or any development activity is either strictly regulated or banned altogether, depending on the grading of the zone.

At a meeting comprising of officials from the Chennai-based agency which has authored the draft plan, the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management and MLAs across party-lines on June 28, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had formally announced the withdrawal of the plan and said that the agency had been directed to re-draft the plan.

After he was forced to exit the public consultation meeting on Saturday, Cabral said he was only trying to create awareness about CRZ-related issues.

"The plan is being re-drafted any which way. My effort is to only create awareness among the people about these issues, so that when the plan is eventually drafted again, they can understand it," Cabral said.

( With inputs from IANS )

Tags: CabralNational Centre For Sustainable Coastal Managementgoa
Open in App

Related Stories

MaharashtraShaktipeeth Mahamarg New Route Map: Know All About Expansion of Nagpur–Goa Expressway Costing 1 Lakh Crore Now

MumbaiMumbai–Goa Highway Traffic Update: 2 Killed, 38 Injured After Bus Overturns in Sukeli Ghat; Long Jams Reported

NationalGoa: Bengaluru Tourist Attacked with Rods at Calangute Beach, Shack Workers Arrested (Watch

NationalGoa Power Cut on March 18: Parts of Panjim to Face Over 7-Hour Outage from 9:30 AM to 5 PM

LifestyleBroken Bottles on Beaches Point to Behavioural Gaps in Waste Disposal

National Realted Stories

NationalBengal polls: Beyond welfare, women seek dignity, safety, jobs

NationalJ-K: Fresh snowfall blankets Bhalesa, upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh

National"Arresting BJP workers to prevent voting...": BJP Leader Bishwajeet Saha slams Mamata Banerjee after three party workers arrested in Birbhum

NationalBJP revokes action against ANS Prasad after apology over Vijay-NDA remark

NationalTamil Nadu: Rs 11 lakh cash seized from DMK functionary's house in Tiruchirappalli