At the GCZMA public meeting… held at short notice and last minute change of venue! While there were about 300 people waiting outside at the Kala Academy gate, 200 were in the the auditorium and on the stage above are North Goa Collector Ajit Roy with panel comprising Dashrat Redkar, Sujit Kumar Dongre, Mahesh Patil, translator Damodar Ghanekar who played a stoic role at the meeting

By Our Special Correspondent

THE battles to save green Goa continues! One didn’t know whom to feel sorry for at the public hearing of the new Coastal Zone Management Plan, put forward by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s government at the public meeting called at the Kala Academy auditorium in Panaji on Sunday, March 7, 2021. For long hours the young North Goa Collector Ajit Roy who moderated the chaotic scene couldn’t calm and reason it out with the feisty citizens of Goa! Hundreds had turned up although only 150 to 200 or so were registered for entry at the venue.
Many more who had turned for the meeting were not allowed into the Dinanath Mangeshkar Auditorium but stopped at the gates and here they chose to hang around for the major part of the day. Inside the auditorium too several speakers started venting their grievances with the Collector’s dead pan attitute towards their pleas to answer a few basic questions. Outside there must have been a sizeable gathering of a few hundred people, 300 plus, plus, although only speakers and the few who had registered in advance to attend the public meeting to hear the grievances of those affected by the CZMP, were allowed through the tightly police monitored gates of the Kala Academy.
The contention of the persons already in the auditorium from 9.30am onwards was that since a large section of the public was outside on the pavements they should be allowed to come in. What kind of a public meeting was this which kept the public out? Surely members of the public should be allowed in to listen to the proceedings to be documented for the public good of the State?
Some were prepared to speak and be heard loudly and eloquently on the subject of the new Coastal Zone Management Plan which has stirred up a hornet’s nest of protests from the coastal villages of Goa. But as it is even before the meeting could take off it turned into a scenario more like jhat maangni, phat vyah (quick engagement and gun-shot arranged wedding fixing) instead of anything else!
It turned into a case of is this meeting public and legal at all? Nobody was sure and some of the members in audience found out that it could be illegal because of the short notice given and the last minute change of venue from the Taleigao Community Hall to the Kala Academy auditorium. It was illegal even on the count that the election code was in place and the Collector had not given permission papers to prove it otherwise.
short notice

As it is the short notice of 15 days given to the public gave the public little time to prepare their notes on the huge illegalities in the new zoning plan, whereby coastal areas ceased to be public land and came under the jurisdiction of the Mormugao Port Trust for the development of infrastructure for coastal commerce to be facilitated.
Even as various familiar citizens upset about the new CZMP were present in the audience sort to express their feelings it was suddenly almost collectively decided that this was no way to conduct a public meeting if only selected persons were allowed into the auditorium, while the majority squatted outside on the Kala Academy pavements with a heavy police force stopping them from coming in if they had no registration proof.
Pertinently, the question was raised early enough and North Goa Collector Ajit Roy constantly asked if this was a public meeting or a private meeting – and where was the public if not in the auditorium? Unfortunately, Mr Roy instead of responding to the queries coming up, betrayed the picture of one very much-hassled man as he tried to restore a modicum of order and decorum in the auditorium by forcing the meeting. Annoyed about this several persons in the auditorium decided there would be no public meeting without the public present, it was there waiting at the gates, please let it in.
This state of chaos with angry comments ringing in the air continued for hours till it became a veritable stalemate, dragging on till close to lunchtime when this correspondent decided to leave the venue. After all the citizens of Goa had come from far and near just to listen to the nitty gritty of the new coastal plan which would affect their lives at ground level. Why shouldn’t the coastal Goa villagers who had taken the pains to come be forced to hang around patiently in the growing heat outside on the pavements?
insensitive!

In the first place it’s in insensitive government which changes the venue of the meeting at short notice and in the second place, it was confirmed that that the Election Commission had given no permission for the public meeting to be held and so the meeting itself was breaking the election code of conduct currently in place. Several of the scheduled speakers repeatedly appealed for the public to be let in but it was all in vain.
This in turn led to further hostility from some of the speakers including the first speaker Aruna Vishnu Wagh who wanted to know why the venue of the public meeting as changed at the last moment amongst other questions. Questions which other speakers picked up on. When Aruna bai refusing to speak formally until her questions were answered she ignored and left hanging in the air, leading to more ire in the audience.
An adamant Collector Ajit Roy did his best to restore the meeting by every now and again calling upon speakers on his list to come forward to speak; after Aruna Vishnu Wagh it was Dilip Kankonkar, Victor Fernandes, Avertano Miranda, Thomas Rodrigues, Prasad Halmakar and some more but most speakers spoke only to agree with the majority contention that the public outside should be let in. As the Collector kept going backstage to speak on his phone and returning to begin the process of conducting the meeting anew, it was clear that like it or not he was strictly at the mercy of instructions given to him by authorities higher up.
The hours flew, the chaos increased with many more in the one-quarter filled auditorium now demanding that the public meeting be postponed to be better organized and at a venue where it could accommodate a larger public to witness it. Many were the accusation flung at the Collector and the panel of four on stage who sat through the angry protests as admirable stoic witnesses, a study in silence! They were namely GCZMA member secretary Dashrat Redkar, also members Sujit Kumar Dongre, Mahesh Patil and translator Damodar Ghanekar, along with North Goa collector Ajit Roy of course playing at being the moderator, a challenge which he was clearly not up to meeting gracefully and turning around.
With his constant forays backstage and reappearance anew to start the meeting, on one occasion he appealed for civilized behavior on the part of the audience! Needless to say this sparked tempers further and fueled anger with rude comments being coming his way including one, “Go home to Simon!”

public?
The vitriol about whether this was a public or private meeting and whether it was legal or illegal given the short 15 days instead of 60 days legal notice, flared up constantly with some reiterating that until the 300 people outside the gates were allowed in no listed speaker on the Collector’s list would speak voluntarily or involuntarily! Alternately, the demand was that the so called public meeting be better postponed seeing how much time had elapsed without any speaker speaking his full five minutes allowed officially for complaints about the CZMP to be recorded by the four-person panel on stage.
Present in the audience were Goa Foundation director Claude Alvares, who is a staunch critic of the CZMP as it is, political activists Kashnath Shetye, heritage conservation person Prajal Sakhardande (who shared with the audience that returning officer Gurudas Desai had told him that no permission had been granted for this public meeting). But only the Collector and State Election Commission had granted permission. Most speakers whose names were called out several times came forward only to support the general consensus in the audience that the meeting should be adjourned to another date at a venue when the general public could be present to witness and participate in.
Ending on a sorry, bitter note some exclaimed that the meeting was a sham, a reality show and a private affair to con the people of Goa into thinking that justice was done when that was far from the truth. Under the circumstance, both the CZMP public meetings called in south Goa and north Goa that fateful Sunday were a colossal failure and fiasco, some will even say farcical. In the end most, the audience at the Kala Academy allowed in to participate or listen, just listened to the largely one-sided contentions of this being no public meeting and some started walking out in disgust. .
If anybody says this was a successful hearing of the CZMP public grievances, they would be lying through their teeth. A sad chapter of progress and development in the small much-loved green state of Goa fighting to be heard by the powers-that-be! “We are not terrorists but citizens and residents of Goa,” observed one participant present, “why so much police force around here?” Who does the police protect, the government from the people’s self-riotous disappointment and wrath? What kind of a government is this which perceives its own people as the enemy?