Socorro gram sabha opposes ODP for village

NT NETWORK
Posted on 2009-02-10
PANAJI-The Socorro gram sabha unanimously resolved to oppose the Outline Development Plan (ODP) for the village and requested the government to immediately denotify it.
It further resolved to extend the date for the public to give their inputs and submit their questionnaires before any final decision on the village maps was taken, in view of the government’s promise to increase the time by one more month.
The gram sabha decided that the response to RP 2021 for Socorro will be finalised in the first week of March. These resolutions were taken at a special gram sabha held to review the progress made by the Village Committee on the draft RP 2021 by the Socorro panchayat on February 8 at the Panchayat Hall.
The convenor of the Village Committee, Mr Dinesh Bhobe briefed the gram sabha on the work carried out to verify the proposals in the draft RP 2021 plans for Socorro.
An architect, Ms Hyacinth Pinto, briefed the gram sabha on various errors observed in the plottings regarding the road alignments and widths, the reflection of waterways as roads, no mention of hill slopes and so on.
The various landmarks in the village have been plotted and the preparation of the final village map rectifying the errors and suggesting changes is in progress. Explanation on the questionnaire was also given to the members who found it difficult to understand it.
The information by the Town and Country Planning Department, about some areas of Socorro village coming under the Outline Development Plan, even though the areas were denotified from PDA’s several years ago, came in for sharp criticism from the gram sabha members. The members accused the TCP of deceiving the public by not releasing complete information.
The gram sabha members have refused to accept a parallel planning process in the same village and wanted to know how the ODPs are preceeding the Regional Plan 2021.
Ms Pinto and other technical persons on the Village Committee admitted that having ODPs in place before the Regional Plan is not in accordance with planning and development norms.