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WRECKAGE OF COASTAL MANAGEMENT ZONE PLAN (CRZP)
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WRECKAGE OF COASTAL MANAGEMENT ZONE PLAN (CRZP)

Uncategorized January 22, 2026 , by

AND a few stray thoughts and a few observations for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when the real estate lobby started to undermine the Goa Coastal Management Zone Plan which is now further sought to be revised and notified soon. A very short period has been given for the traditional objections and suggestions. The word “suggestions” is of course a cover for relaxation of the rules to permit higher rise super luxury complexes and more 5-star hotels.
Beachfront properties are always sought after and attract a huge premium. Historically, there have been large scale violations of the coastal management rules and guidelines. Virtually, every 5-star hotel has come up in violation of the CRZ rules. All the 5-star hotels in Panjim with the exception of the Marriott have cases for violation of CRZ rules. The Bambolim Grand Hyatt has been asked to demolish a wall put up on the beach to prevent entry of locals.
In the case of the Cidade de Goa the Supreme Court ordered the demolition of a large part of the later development including the banquet hall and over 50 rooms. Fomento managed to persuade then Chief Minister Digambar Kamat to retrospectively amend the CRZ Act to protect the Cidade de Goa. The modus operandi of both real estate developers and the hospitality industry which includes high profile night clubs like The Bastian at Morgim owned by Shilpa Shetty and friends is patented.
You put up an illegal structure in violation of the CRZ rules whether it is within the no construction limit from the high tide line or khazan lands. A case is filed against you. You get a high court stay and appeal to the Supreme Court. It takes 20 years plus to get a hearing and an SC order due to the huge backlog of cases. In the meanwhile, you may continue to operate your 5-star beachfront resorts and make mega bucks to run away with.
Incredibly, every second day there are advertisements on Facebook offering beach view or ocean front properties at incredible prices. Never mind that once the real estate project comes up with a clear view of the sea for which you pay a premium, other taller projects come out to block your sea view. Ocean Park at Dona Paula where the Kadamba plateau really begins was by its very name promoted as a beach front property. But so many other constructions have come up besides the Ocean Park buildings that today you may be straining your neck to get even a little refreshing glimpse of the sea in the near or far distance. But such is the obsession with beachfront homes that new suckers are born every minute and the bidding for a piece of the Goan beachside up hill and down dale continues unabated.
LUTHRA BROTHERS INVOCATION
AND a few stray thoughts on the Luthra brothers who have been indicted in the Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub in Arpora inferno invoking the precedence of the Bhopal gas tragedy. The most vile infamous Bhopal gas tragedy which took place in the early 80s (December 3, 1984), due to gross negligence in putting into place adequate safety measures, and so in the incident the poisonous methyl isocyanate gas used in the manufacture of pesticides leaked. The lethal gas killed 3,800 people immediately and the collateral damage claimed the life of an estimated 30,000 plus people over the years.
The chairman of the globally Union Carbide company Chris Anderson was quietly allowed to leave the country allegedly courtesy a loophole in the Foreign Regulation Act. The Supreme Court diluted the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to willful murder which would have attracted a minimum regress imprisonment of 10 years. The SC reduced the charge filed by the lower courts to one of death by negligence which carries a sentence of only two years in prison. The chairman of the Indian subsidiary, the venerable late Keshub Mahindra, better known for the Mahindra vehicles, was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison; the sentence was suspended and he did not spend a single day in jail.
The point of invoking the Bhopal tragedy case by the Luthra lawyers is to escape criminal liability for the death of 25 plus employees in the aforesaid Arpora tragedy. As in the case of Union Carbide what the Luthra brothers are trying to do is to get away with offering compensation in monetary terms instead of spending 10 years in jail if they are charged for culpable homicide. This is not a case of just negligence but criminal conspiracy to evade all the rules and regulations.
The high court had ordered the demolition of the illegal structure which had come up on khazan wet lands. The demolition was never carried out by the local authorities. The Goa bench of the high court has recently confirmed that Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub was operating without proper permissions for several years now. Most tragic was the fact that they had not installed even adequate fire safety equipment and not secured the required permission from the Director of Fire Services who has repeatedly pointed out that the night club had been warned to install proper fire safety equipment, all of which was ignored.
However, the high court has also pointed out that the eco-system which permitted Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub to operate without due license for several years is also responsible for the inferno tragedy and loss of so many lives. Obviously, the lawyers of the Luthra brothers are trying to escape criminal liability altogether. They seem to have received a great deal of help from the BJP government in the state. The State legislative assembly passed a bill ironically called the Jan Vishwas Bill which has de-criminalized illegal constructions and perhaps even selective amnesia over fire safety requirements. And what are noise pollution rules? The harsh reality is that they will probably get away with it, if you have the money you can always bribe your way out of any legal liability in the new Bharat of the BJP, which is perhaps not totally correct.
It was the Congress in power when the Union Carbide bosses both American and Indian got away with paying small amounts of blood money to the kith and kin of the victims who died in the Bhopal tragedy. It’s a story of miserable and nauseating repeats.

NOISE POLLUTION RULES
AND a few stray thoughts on noise pollution regulations for another Saturday announced by the chairman of the Goa Pollution Control Board Levenson Martins. Enthusiastically like a new broom in power he has imposed sweeping and blanket changes in the pollution control bill. Reacting to the complaints that over a thousand establishments ranging from nightclubs to humble shacks have been shattering eardrums of humans and domestic animals particularly on the beach belt, Martins says that there cannot be amplified sound beyond 10pm.
Martins has extended the ironclad deadline even to Catholic marriages. This has provoked a storm of protest as Catholics believe that it is their fundamental right to celebrate the new marriage nuptials with much singing and dancing and even till the wee hours of the dawn. But why blame only the Catholics?
Can there be any Indian celebration without noise making? The temple jatra, all of them, take place after 12 midnight and go on till the early hours of the morning. Then there are the garba, bhangra dancing and other celebrations of communities from outside who have settled in Goa over time. The chath puja of the Bihari and UP types is held between sunset and sunrise.
However, perhaps the Catholics do not have powerful lobbies like the Hindutva majority community has. The night clubs and the other entertainment event organizations can always bribe the cops to look the other way for a price. And of course nothing can be done in the north Goa beach belt which is under the protection of the Lobos, who control not only the beaches of Baga, Candolim and Calangute but also Vagator and Anjuna which are a part of the Siolim constituency represented by Delilah Lobo.
However, we must commend Levinson Martin for insisting that there will be no exception to the rule on the subject of noise pollution. There’s really no reason why Catholic wedding celebrations cannot start by early by 6pm and wind up before midnight. But it is unlikely that the zatra or jatra temple folk will agree to daytime functions since the rituals are guided by the stars.

NATION OF LITTERBUGS, INDIA
AND a few stray thoughts on the rediscovery that Indians are compulsive litterbugs. After the first inaugural journey of the new super-luxury Vande Bharat sleeper train from Kolkatta to Gauhati reportedly the compartments were found littered with plastic bags and other garbage. Passengers traveling in this elite had just discarded their food wrappers and other disposable containers wherever they chose to.
We do not know if the Vande Bharat trains authorities of which claim to match the services to the standards of Euorpean counterparts proved garbage disposal bins for passengers. Unlike in the normal low budget trains you may not throw all the paper cups and plastic wrappings out of your train compartment window. Part of the problem of course is all the food and drinks including bottled water supplied to passengers as part of the fare paid for as in the case of the Rajdhani express trains where water may come in small cups pouches. This is true not only of super luxury trains but even on air services operated by Indian companies, including Air India and Indigo which operates on international routes. Have you ever noticed that though lunch and dinner or breakfast is served primarily on plastic trays on international flights, there is no place to dispose the empty wrappers except in the front pouch of your seat. Most Indian travelers have no patience to wait for the hostesses who come around later with a bag for passengers to put in their tissues and other small waste collected. It may be shoved under the seats.
Recently, an Air-India flight from New York had to turn back because all the toilets were clogged with sanitary pads and other waste. The person who designed the Vande Mataram sleeper coach has humorously warned that Indians may have to be potty trained if they wanted to travel by the super luxury Vande Mataram trains. Everyone yelled that at him for being condescending. However, he has been proved right as seen by a photographer’s evidence of litter that has surfaced in the compartments at the end of the train journey.

25TH LOKOTSAV IN PANJIM
AND a last stray thought on the ongoing Lokotsav festival at the Darya Sangam grounds of the Kala Academy campus in Panjim. Minister for Culture Ramesh Tawadkar, who was former speaker of the assembly, decided to cut down on the number of stalls permitted with a view to ensure fire safety regulations. But this was done at the last moment as an afterthought without many craftspeople who have arrived from the rest of the country to display and sell their crafts and artefacts at the Lokotsav.
The Lokotsav is jointly organized by the Western Region Cultural Centre which includes the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharastra. Reportedly, stalls allotted were abruptly cancelled two days before the start of the Lokotsav. There also have been loud complaints from locals who have not got stalls despite having applied for them much in advance.
The locals have agreed to share stalls allotted but there is no room for the “baile” or outsiders. We were not aware that the Lokotsav now spreads over a mammoth number of 550 stalls, even if over the years the quality of craftsmanship has gone down. The young ones are not as skilled or dedicated as the older generation of craftspeople.
And of course there will occur the huge problem of litter from the food courts at the Lokotsav. Never mind that the kachori and jalebi turned out by the Rajasthan groups are amongst the biggest attraction at the Lokotsav food court. The sorry story is that the stall owners, particularly from out of Goa, sometimes sleep over at their stall spaces overnight, using the Kala Academy washroom facilities for their ablutions which are inadequate for something like 2,000 plus, plus people here to market a gamut of crafts, household utility value goods, attire, costume jewelry, footwear, decorative pottery, and so much more, not to forget the food stalls of various denomination.

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