2 new PDAs okayed for North Goa

PANAJI

Announcing the decision Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai said that the move was in keeping with his aim of "trying to have planned areas for growing urbanised zones."
According to the newly drawn jurisdictions, the North Goa Planning and Development Authority will have the ODPs of Panaji, Mapusa and Calangute-Candolim (including Parra and Arpora). The newly created Greater Panjim PDA will have the areas of Taleigao, Bambolim and Kadamba plateau under its care while the special Mopa PDA will have charge of the upcoming Mopa Airport and surrounding areas.
"The notified planning area of Mopa which was notified in November 2016, will have a new PDA," Sardesai announced. "Greater Panjim ODP will be only for the development of plateaus. At the moment, Kadamba plateau is already a PDA on the so we're doing nothing new there. We are only taking Taleigao plateau and Bambolim plateau," Sardesai added. "We've not given them everything (they wanted) but we've taken heed of their sentiments and taken heed of the gram sabha of Curca which sought that the village of Curca be left out of the PDA. We've respected it and Curca rea is no longer part of the PDA. Only Bambolim plateau, which is growing -- that everybody can see -- is included in the PDA," Sardesai added.
"We are only declaring those areas as ‘planning areas' which have sufficient infrastructure when it comes to road, water electricity, fibre optic cable, network connectivity," Sardesai said adding that there was also a demand from two MLAs -- Francisco Silveira of San André and Antonio Fernandes of Santa Cruz -- both opposition Congress MLAs who Sardesai said wrote to him seeking the inclusion of such areas in PDAs. He brandished two letters written by the MLAs to buttress his point.
"This is in keeping with the demography of the villages, this is a sentiment which is of much concern to the people that village demography should not be altered. We are respecting this sentiment," he added.