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Will Monte Hill area get special protection in Margao ODP?

SGPDA Member Secretary assures no proposal will be considered for change in zone

| FEBRUARY 16, 2019, 02:08 AM IST
Will Monte Hill area get special  protection in Margao ODP?

the goan I network

MARGAO

Will the picturesque Monte Hill area – perhaps the city’s last vestige of green cover – receive any special protection from the South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) as the planning body has set in motion the process to finalise the Outline Development Plan (ODP) for Margao.

SGPDA Member Secretary Ashok Kumar was quick to assure that proposals, if any, filed for a change in zone of the place from orchard to settlement, will not be considered by the PDA. Local Margao Municipal councillor, Glen Andrade, however, went a step further to say that only special protection for Monte Hill area by way of notifying the area as Eco-Sensitive Zone-I will help stop laterite walls and compound walls from coming up on the picturesque slope.

“I cannot give the exact number of proposals received by the PDA for change in zone of the Monte Hill area from orchard to settlement. All I can say is that the SGPDA has agreed in-principle not to grant a change in zone of the sloppy area from orchard to settlement,” PDA Member Secretary Ashok Kumar told The Goan. 

During the finalisation of the controversial ODP two years ago, which was later scrapped after public hue and cry, the SGPDA had received a couple of proposals for change in zone of the area from orchard to settlement, but the proposals were rejected outright by the PDA during the stage of scrutiny.

The changing scenario at the Monte Hill area, special along the Chapel-T B Sanatorium road, however, has raised concerns amongst Madgavkars over the fate of the green cover atop the hillock. For, a compound wall has come up at one place, while the same owner was last year involved in clearing vegetation to build another wall to secure his property on the slope.

Citizens and heritage lovers have feared that the green cover and the heritage value of the area, along the stretch of the road may disappear if the owners clear the vegetation and secure the properties with compound wall.

Margao Municipal councillor, Glen Andrade, who is representing the ward, said that the only way to preserve the green cover atop Monte Hill is to notify the sloppy areas as Eco Sensitive Zone-I. 

“Presently, the land is notified as orchard. However, there’s no bar in issuing construction licences for compound walls. What we have seen atop Monte Hill is a devious plan to clear the vegetation from the slopes under the guise of building compound walls. I am of the strong opinion that the heritage value of the area can be preserved for posterity only if the zone is notified as Eco Sensitive Zone-I,” 

Glen said.

In fact, the councillor informed that he has filed his objection to the draft PDA with a proposal to notify the area as Eco Sensitive Zone-I. Glen, who is aligned to the TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai’s group, said that he has also requested the TCP Minister to preserve the heritage value of Monte Hill for posterity.

On the last two occasions, when vegetation had disappeared along the Chapel-T B Sanatorium road, the TCP Minister had descended at Monte Hill, which falls in his Fatorda constituency, to promise citizens that the PDA will never change the zone 

of the area from orchard to settlement.

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