NT NETWORK
PANAJI
Government officials led by tourism department on Tuesday started the process of joint inspection to check for compliance of the location and position of the shacks and other conditions pertaining to their erection.
The inspection will continue for next three days. However, the decision to grant licence to operate shacks will be given by tourism department on a case-to-case basis, if the conditions set by GCZMA and GSPCB are complied with. The whole process will take at least a week.
“We have started the post-demarcation inspection to check whether the shacks have been erected adhering to CRZ guidelines. We have also received a complaint from Aleixo Pereira alleging that in Utorda and Majorda beach stretch, the conditions have not been complied with,” the official said. The inspection with respect to demarcation and allotment of location for erection of shacks in both North and South Goa stretches has already been completed and now representatives of Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB), GCZMA expert members, forest department, fisheries department and land and survey department and tourism department have started joint inspection to ensure that shacks are erected according to CRZ guidelines and tourism policy.
According to GCZMA guidelines, the tourism department has to ensure that every shack maintains a setback of at least 3 metres between the dune line and rear side of the shacks as well as beach vegetation (ipomoea creeper) to ensure that there would not be any environmental degradation in the area. Also the setback between two shacks shall be 2.5 metre.
The department will also check whether during the erection of temporary seasonal structures, construction and waste material has been dumped on the sand dunes or burned and the sand dunes shall not be altered under any circumstances. The proposed temporary seasonal structures should be of purely temporary nature of wooden or environment-friendly material like bamboos, wooden poles with thatched palm leaves / thatched bamboo mat roofing. Use of concrete material and grouting plastering, laying of PCC / RCC on the floor, structure, digging of soak pits, digging and laying of pipes, metal staircases grouted in cement is absolutely banned.
After a delay of about a month due to its non-reconstitution, GCZMA, which was finally reconstituted earlier this month, had approved a total of 364 shacks. However, it could not allot spaces to fifteen shacks.
The authority has granted only one-year permit for erection of temporary shacks on Calangute beach, Candolim beach and Ozrant beach for the tourist season 2016-17 in the backdrop of National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) report which states that beach carrying capacity has been exceeded in terms of number of shacks along these beach stretches.
