now, tcp noc must to buy, sell plots

PANAJI
The Town and Country Planning Board, which met on Thursday decided to make an NOC from the Town and Country Planning department mandatory before anyone can buy or sell plots for residential purposes.
The NOC referred to as the 49-6 NOC, hitherto only applicable to lands in areas falling within the control of Outline Development Plans, will now be applicable across the State, and without the document, which indicates whether the land is zoned as settlement, the sale deed will not be allowed to be taken forward.
"To act as a deterrent for further conversion and sale of orchard properties, plots under orchard land we are making 49-6 NOC for sale applicable to the whole State of Goa. At the moment the 49-6 is only applicable to planned areas i.e PDA areas," Sardesai said.
He said the move was to avoid sellers of plots cheating prospective buyers by telling them that the plots can later be converted to settlement.
"The TCP department will not grant the 49-6 NOC if it is not in settlement area," Sardesai said.
The NOC will use the Regional Plan 2001 as a base plan to decide what land is marked as settlement and what is not even as it examines the legal sanctity of the 2021 plan especially in the light of various legal undertakings affidavits that have been filed before various courts.
The Board has also recommended to the government to amend the Town and Country Planning Act to increase the penalty for illegal conversion of orchard and other eco-sensitive lands, while also making the procedure for ‘legal' conversion of such lands for ‘genuine cases' more transparent.
"We've taken up the issue of illegal development of land in orchard areas. This is an issue that has been debated in the legislative assembly and we are of the opinion that there is a need to amend the TCP Act so as to have criminal liability for people who want to do illegal development of these orchard lands," Sardesai told reporters after the meeting.
An internal investigation by the department has suggested that at least 20-lakh square metres of orchard land have been illegally converted, Sardesai informed.
"We are suggesting that the liability of a person getting involved in illegal land development orchard lands be should be one-year simple imprisonment. We're asking for an amendment to the act to make this criminal liability applicable," he said.
However, the TCP is also mulling an ‘amnesty period' for those who have illegally converted the land, built houses and started living in them.
"Till March 31, 2018, those who have converted and have built houses, and have begun to stay, such people can approach the (TCP) Board and on merit, we will decide on their conversion cases. There is a criterion for this. We will not give you a conversion if it is a low lying area, or if it is mangrove or a paddy field or sloping land or any other eco-sensitive area," Sardesai said.
At the same time however, the Board will "take up case to case conversion of land for legal conversion."
"To facilitate legal conversion we're saying the parties, genuine cases can approach the TCP board and under section 17 we will convert your land on the condition that it is not an eco-sensitive land, it is not a khazan land, it is not a low lying paddy field or it is not sloping land," Sardesai said.