Symptoms attacked, system untouched in Goa's planning controversy - Soter

 Lead article published in oHeraldo on 23March 2026

What gets repeatedly brushed under the carpet is the inconsistency of the Goa TCP Act, 1975, with the provisions related to decentralised planning and development in Part IX and IXA of the Constitution.

The weeks gone by have been witnessing an unprecedented spike in protests against the destruction of hills, fields, forests, sand dunes, water bodies and other natural resources across this ecologically fragile State of Goa. Villages are being ravaged by mega commercial and housing projects beyond the carrying capacity of the existing basic infrastructure. The environmental impact and social consequences of the government’s unsustainable and chaotic development are increasingly becoming visible and felt across the State. This plunder is resulting in strain on the coastal ecosystems and basic infrastructure like roads, water and power supply, sewerage, garbage disposal, and health issues due to rising pollution levels, besides other related problems.

There is no doubt that the crisis arising from failure of governance in Goa is traumatic for the common man who is left clueless and helpless in the prevailing chaos. The public outrage against various development projects is very much justified, because ultimately it is the common man who is left to bear the brunt of such non-participatory, non-transparent bureaucratic paternalism in planning and development processes. The cost of such governance failure is the loss of precious lives in road fatalities, natural calamities and health hazards. What makes matters even worse is the offensive approach of the government towards citizens who rightfully come on the streets with their problems.

It is in such times of frustration, distress and desperation that political narratives about a threat to Goa’s ecology and identity tend to strike an instant emotional connection with the public. The emotional reaction to the situation from citizens tends to blind reason, thereby becoming a fertile ground for political manipulation. Any truth or attempt to reason gets outshouted by the propaganda machinery of the powerful political lobbies at play to keep the public constantly charged emotionally, giving no time to think.

Amidst such an environment, wherein opportunistic forces tend to exploit public emotions, observing the propaganda patterns adopted for the protests and movements and subjecting them to critical thinking becomes necessary. This could avoid political disillusionment setting in after repeated deception from illusions of change forwarded for selfish political and business gains. It is in this above context that citizens need to ask the question: Is the pattern of the current protests against the large scale conversion of land use in 2026 any different from the anti-RP2011 agitation which swept Goa in 2006? Is the narrative and control of what is claimed to be a ‘People’s Movement’ actually participatory, or, is it remotely driven by hidden political and real estate considerations?

The propaganda patterns of 2006 leading to the anti-RP 2011 agitation and the current hysteria around sections 39A and 17(2) of the TCP law are about attacking isolated aberrations, rather than questioning the deeper structural deficiencies in planning. Amplifying the noise about an ‘outsider’ threat from real estate, destruction of natural resources, the convenient scapegoating or villainizing of some or the other minister and bureaucrat as responsible for the sell-out of Goa, and the timing of protest one year before the Assembly election are all similar tactics which were employed in the anti-RP 2011 protests. The controversy around massive land zoning changes was central to the 2006 agitation, and now two decades later the same problem gets blamed on a couple of problematic provisions of the very same planning law.

Could it be that the episodic and recurring cycle of protests against land zoning changes is the result of toying with some or the other sections of the TCP law instead of questioning the system, more like treating the symptom instead of the underlying disease? Is it really the particular sections of the TCP law which are the cause of Goa’s destruction, or, a structurally flawed planning buoyed by an outdated law? The recent debate on section 39A which beat around the bush in the August House is perhaps enough of a clue about the political reservations to nail and tackle the root cause head on. This observation is in no way intended to give a clean chit to any minister in government when it comes to their abuse of powers.

Amidst all the technical and legal jargon around Goa’s destructive planning, what gets repeatedly brushed under the carpet is the inconsistency of the Goa TCP Act, 1975, with the provisions related to decentralised planning and development in Part IX and IXA of the Constitution. It was the historic passage of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, in 1992, which fundamentally altered the architecture of democratic governance in the country. It was meant to transform governance by decentralising power and embedding democracy at the grassroots.

These amendments constitutionalized Panchayats and Municipalities, mandating participatory planning through local self-government institutions. The amendments envisioned District Planning Committees (DPCs) that would consolidate plans prepared by Panchayats and Municipalities into holistic district development blueprints. The spirit was unmistakably that development must be planned from the ground up, not imposed from above. But there is a strange silence from politicians and technocrats on the failure of the government to accommodate the District Development Planning under Article 243ZD of the Constitution into Goa’s planning laws.

Some or the other provision like 39A and 17(2) may continue to provoke debate and public anger every time elections are due. But the planning disaster in Goa did not begin with isolated provisions in the law, nor will they end if the provision is amended or scrapped. It is the planning system that remains vulnerable to discretionary, technocratic and bureaucratic hegemony, instead of a decentralised approach, that needs to be addressed. Beyond the technical arguments also lies a fundamental democratic truth, that the laws which govern society are inseparable from the choices made in the voting booth. If citizens wish to have laws and better policies which promote a decentralised and participatory governance, the first step in saving Goa is to vote in lawmakers who will not get drunk with power.