“Unlike in the past, most of the constructions on hills now are “legal” because now they have permissions from the Goa government. Even if it is a hill, even if an authoritative document of the government [Regional Plan] says it is a hill, a private engineer hired by the landowner declared it not a hill and the state of Goa is going with whatever the property owner says.”
The case for a new regional plan
Since 2018, three consecutive amendments–Sections 16B, 17(2) and now 39A–have been introduced in Goa’s TCP Act to allow plot-by-plot conversion of zones in the regional plan. The rationale behind all of them have largely been about errors or anomalies in the plan and the need to correct them.
In September 2024, the TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane told the Times of India that a lot of people have benefitted from Section 17(2). “Some people’s lands were originally settlement areas which were made into paddy fields and orchards and put in different zones,” he had said in September 2024.
“While there may be some such cases, the minister, when challenged in the assembly, has not been able to give any detailed maps or listing of what he alleges,” said Solano DaSilva, an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at BITS Pilani, Goa and one of the authors of the book The Great Goa Land Grab. He added that the plan does need corrections but not the ones that the minister claims.
The plan, in its list of issues that need new policies, stressed on the need for updating the plan using a GIS system to make the data geo-referenced and spatially linked. It also said that certain departments have only provided them with incomplete data.
“We did not have GIS then, we only had survey maps and had to collate data from each department separately. All of the layers came one-by-one and we did the best we could given the limited resources,” said D’Cruz, the architect who was also a member of the Task Force for the 2021 regional plan. “That was 20 years ago and that support system was not there. Now we have better technology.”
The year mentioned in a regional plan is the horizon year until which the planning had been done. Activists and researchers have also been demanding an update.
“This regional plan was planned up to 2021. The natural process for a new plan ought to have started, which the government has not done,” said former chief justice of Allahabad High Court, Justice Ferdino Rebello, who also has been leading a citizen’s movement called “Enough is Enough” to protect Goa’s environment and people’s rights. A new plan would have to undergo public consultation and would be a more transparent process, all of which the government has bypassed by introducing amendments like Section 17(2) and 39A, he added.
In January 2026, Justice Rebello shared a 10-point Citizen’s Charter of demands aimed at protecting the environment and ecology of the state. The first point of the charter called for immediate halt to hill-cutting by declaring them the heritage of the people.
“Goa is dependent on rain water. The rain which falls percolates into these hills and filters out into streams and rivers. If we cut down all the hills, and the trees then where will we get water from?” asked Justice Rebello, “And we also have soft laterite soil. If trees are cut, then the soil will fall down and we will have landslides.”
Risk for landslides also depends on the composition and integrity of the lateritic soil. “The iron and silica makeup of lateritic soil changes based on distance from the coast. With acid rain, lateritic soil weakens; with certain types of plants, lateritic soil becomes stronger,” said Noronha, while stressing the need for location-specific soil sampling and testing before permissions are given. “Because, in places where the laterite is degraded, even disturbing a 10-15% slope could risk landslides,” he added.
Moreover, the current provisions are not enough, said D’Cruz. “Most of the slopes in Goa have gradients closer to 1:4 (25%) and they are highly ecosensitive forested patches. So, to protect these borderline cases, it is better to consider 1:5 (20%) as the threshold,” he said.
“If we can only correct the RP-2021 in the manner it was sought to be corrected. By ensuring all of the slopes and paddy are marked out properly. Tenanted lands should also be marked because they also cannot be used for non-agricultural purposes. The government has all this data. If we can only do that, we will be able to protect most of Goa,” said DaSilva.
This report is republished with permission from ISignal, formerly IndiaSpend, a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit. It has been lightly edited for style and clarity.