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People Speak

Goa Regional Plan 2011 - Who is anti-development?

Solano Da Silva, Department of International Development,
Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford

On the 18th of December, concerned citizens of Goa gathered in Panaji in a collective show of solidarity protesting against the Goa Regional Plan 2011. Two aspects of plan 2011 raised the ire of the citizenry:

1) the process by which the plan was designed; sidestepping institutions of participative planning – the Panchayats and municipalities, the lack of any assessment of the previous 2001 Regional Plan, the failure to complete a survey demarcating forest from non-forest land prior to preparing the regional plan, disregard for preparing land use maps and land use register and the speed and stealth by which the plan was sought to be implemented, all reeked of conspiracy.
2) the very contents of the plan; the sheer scale of conversion envisaged, from forest, orchard and farm land into settlement and industrial zones, in many cases blatantly violating environmental laws, demonstrated that the plan had no regard for the values cherished by the people of Goa or for their long-term interests.

For the above reasons the democratic citizenry of Goa under the banner ‘Save Goa’ have issued an ultimatum to the government to scrap the plan completely. Critics on the sidelines and in political circles have jeered that the demonstrators calling them ‘anti-development’ and that they were confining Goans to a life in the ‘villages’.

One does not require a degree in economics to point out the quality of development proposed by the Regional plan 2011 is one which throws all principles of caution, sensibility and sound management to the wind. And it is not difficult to reason why this is so, because the plan is clearly obsessed with ‘fast’ profits. As a result the plan treats communities and importantly their resources merely as means to an end (fast profits). Development as it has come to be widely understood today, on the contrary, places the human person and communities at the centre of all economic activity (this includes planning). In arguing that human and community wellbeing is the end/objective of all economic effort, this fresh understanding of development has challenged orthodox (but pervasive) economic models to set their priorities right.

Human development as this paradigm has come to be know has shown empirically that we can achieve increases in productivity, profits and income and simultaneously still have destitution, increasing unemployment, very unequal societies and serious resource and environmental degradation. Human Development has argued that metrics like income, productivity and profits are not the objectives of the development but are at best means to human wellbeing. For development to become people-centred the process itself has to be truly participatory, well-informed and democratic and this is precisely what the citizens at Azad Maidan have demanded; that they want to see development which is concerned with people’s lives and which is constitutive of Goan society’s larger values and aspirations. They also demanded that it is their constitutional right to participate in the determination of their future. Taking this into account the demonstrators are actually for development - a form of development which is cherished by all and beneficial to all, including the generations to follow. What they are articulating is like a breath of fresh air to the pervasive but unsustainable, wasteful and unjust development discourse of the day.

The second way in which the demonstrators were actually for development lies in the fact that they are securing for Goans the freedom to choose. Let me explain this by proposing a thought experiment; Suppose we Goans had acquiesced to the implementation of the Regional plan and as a result green belts got converted into housing estates and mines. Would we thereafter be able, citing reasons such as: ecological crisis, loss of our Unique Selling Proposition, infrastructure collapse, downturn in the real estate market, etc., be able to revert back to the green belts we sanctioned to be converted? Arguably this would be close to impossible! Plan 2011 in its composition and manner of implementation seems to close options for development. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is by opposing the speedy and unlearned implementation of Plan 2011, that Goans can actually choose and choose wisely … they can begin a fresh, well-informed, thoroughly deliberated and consensual plan for their near future.

In the above passages I have tried to foreground that development has to be about people, otherwise it is not authentic development. When development is about people, it has to consider their values and it has to be sustainable and ecologically sensitive. The only justified way for a people-centred development is through a truly democratic and well-informed process. This is often a long-drawn and arduous path, but if we comprehend that it is the future of Goa that is at stake, then arguably the long road is worth every step. It is in this light that the demonstrators at Azad Maidan, contrary to the accusation of being anti-development, are actually those most concerned about Goa’s development – one where people and their long-term future matters!

People Speak

Goa Regional Plan 2011 - Who is anti-development?

From the Discussion Forum