Activists: Draft CRZ will forever displace local occupants

Calangute: Goans Against CRZ — a federation comprising unions, political parties and activists — organised a meeting at Calangute beach on Monday to create awareness about the implications of the draft 2018 Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification which has proposed to reduce ‘no-development zones’ from the existing 200m to 50m.

Kennedy Afonso, convenor of the federation, said the 2011 CRZ notification, regularising structures built by traditional occupants in no-development zones, should have been implemented by now. However, seven years later, nothing has been done to implement the 2011 notification that would have benefited traditional occupants. “Now they have come up with the 2018 draft notification to reduce the no-development zone to 50m. This is being done only to facilitate construction of hotels by outsiders who have bought huge areas of land in the no-development zones,” he said.

Former Calangute sarpanch Joseph Sequeira, who also spoke at the meeting, said if the draft 2018 notification is implemented, it would forever displace local traditional occupants

Former Calangute MLA Agnelo Fernandes said the most affected would be beach shack owners.

“Most of the beachside plots have been bought by outsiders who are waiting to build hotels. Once hotels are built, no beach shacks would be permitted in front of the hotels. The shack owners will be finished,” he said.

However, response to the meeting was unimpressive.