Panaji: Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) has written to the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM), Chennai, seeking the removal of a land parcel in Carmona, Salcete, from its coastal regulation zone (CRZ) classification, following a request from a hotel.The land — covered under two survey numbers — was marked as a khazan area in the CRZ maps included in Goa’s Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP), which was prepared by NCSCM. The hotel approached GCZMA, claiming the area had been erroneously shown as khazan in the CZMP.After receiving the request, a GCZMA team conducted a site inspection last year in the presence of a hotel representative. The inspection found that the land partly fell within a khazan area and partly outside CRZ limits. Portions were also within a mangrove buffer zone and the river’s no-development zone. The GCZMA team reported that the land was covered with coconut trees, jungle trees, and shrubs.GCZMA later concluded that more conclusive findings were needed and referred the matter to WRD for ground-truthing to confirm whether the land qualifies as khazan. In its meeting, GCZMA noted that WRD’s clarification was necessary because the site did not appear to meet the criteria for khazan lands: the presence of a bundh, a sluice gate, and a low-lying elevation compared to mean sea level.This year, WRD carried out an inspection and confirmed that the land was at road level, with no sluice gates or bundhs on site, and therefore does not qualify as khazan land. Carmona village panchayat also informed WRD that there is no evidence of sluice gates, bundhs, or traditional khazan-type agricultural practices in the survey numbers. In response to a query, the agriculture department’s soil conservation division said it does not maintain records related to such khazan lands.Based on these findings, GCZMA decided at its meeting last month to refer the case to NCSCM, recommending corrections to the CZMP maps.
