There is a saying: if you eat something and it does you good, it is an elixir; but if it kills you instead, it is nothing but a poison.

We are no longer certain today whether “development” is an elixir or a poison. Are present developments going to eat up Goa or will Goa emerge better because of them?

We adopted “development” wholesale because we were told it would do us good: help us get rid of our unemployment; assist people out of poverty; improve material welfare, living standards. We know now it does not do any of these things.

Instead, “development” appears designed to destroy and to kill. In this case, the very idea and identity of Goa.

At the present moment, no one in his right mind would claim that the things that are being passed of as “development” are in Goa’s interests: from SEZs to the defunct Regional Plan, to mining, to mega housing. In all these cases, the principal promoters represent outside capital and assets. The cumulative impact of all these developments would be equivalent to that of a hurricane, one which overwrites, overwhelms, subdues, eradicates, bends to its will. At the end of the road, we will certainly have “development”, but Goa will be lost forever.

Is there any other way?

Like so many other places on the planet, Goa is unique. There are pre-Portuguese, Portuguese and post-Portuguese elements in its life-style. Some people like the pre-Portuguese quality of life, some like the Portuguese, others like the mixture. However, almost no one likes the post-Portuguese. It has no character at all, except a general, wearying shabbiness.

The amazing thing is that all the pre-Portuguese and Portuguese planning took place in the absence of a Town Planning Department! The only conclusion one should draw from this is that the presence of a Town Planning Department will only do harm, not good. For an alternative plan, one has therefore to look somewhere else.

Some members of the Task Force on the Regional Plan 2021 were reluctant to admit the idea that villagers could create their own alternative development plans. Come to think of it, Goan villages are so well designed over the past several centuries, there is little that further planning could do except ruin them. Today, even if we do nothing but simply follow the earlier handling of topographies – of high and low, flat and slope, wet and dry, forested and barad – we would keep the beauty of the village for decades. Actions required would be: protect the upper slopes; the forests on comunidade lands; the paddy fields in the low lands; the wetlands for the birds; the sangrias and the pynes. However, we seem totally incapable of doing this.

Why has it been so difficult for us to protect the character of Goa’s individual villages? Precisely because we centralised planning. Go to Europe and see how every village and town centre has been not just protected but maintained with strict controls by their local authorities. They have raised their tourism industry purely on heritage. It is a shame that despite being a major international tourist destination, we cannot protect our peaceful villages from degenerating into slums and our cities into concrete jungles.

Our natural resources: we do not appreciate them at all. Why would environmentalists have to struggle to protect forests, hill slopes, mangroves, sand dunes, wetlands and paddy fields? Is there any reason why we should make the destruction of these the central focus of our planning, as we have done in the last forty decades?

What about calculating for once the carrying capacity of Goa as a State? Goa has a population of 1.4 million only in an area that one can criss cross in three to four hours. Why has it been so difficult to do even a basic carrying capacity analysis, so that “development” that exceeds or transgresses the capacity of the land to absorb human impact or survive interference can be kept effectively at bay?

When the existing hordes of tourists are already creating a problem for the local population, why are we continuing to invite more and more? Will there never be a limit for the numbers of tourists arriving in Goa? Doesn’t tourism promotion have to stop somewhere? As it is, we are unable to plan for our local settlements and urban centres. Why are we inviting headaches generated by a large floating population that comes to treat the State as another piece of consumption?

Look how quickly we want to demolish our beautiful cities! Everywhere in the world, the car is being treated as a public menace, banned from certain zones of cities. Only in Goa are people allowed, free of cost, to park their SUVs and other gear in prime open spaces, sometimes for the entire day. Only in Goa do crooked Town Planning officials and Municipal Councils and Corporations grant occupancy certificates to buildings that have already sold their parking spaces for shops. We do not allow people to put up building plans without toilets and septic tanks. However, we prepare development plans for Margao, Panaji, Mapusa, Ponda without keeping aside any land for dealing with garbage.

Planners and professionals like this who can mess up entire settlements should be locked up in mental asylums. Instead, we listen to them at seminars.

We are all fed up with planning from the top. The top has indicated it is incapable of sound planning. We should now try planning from below. The upsurge against destructive panchayat and Town Planning approvals, wrongfully located industries and mines, should become the basis for a different kind of development model. If villagers come out on the streets and demand that all new development to be considered shall be in harmony with the natural and built environment of the village, this will quickly rule out mega-projects. If villagers demand that their ODPs keep space for future housing, crematoria, sports grounds, schools, primary health care centres, etc, etc., no unwanted factory will take root anywhere in the State.

In fact, no development should be allowed to seek approvals anywhere unless it first has the approval of the village planning authority: the gram sabha. This is the law, this is the Constitution. Post-1994, the village authority has been given the inalienable right to plan the sustainable development of the area within its jurisdiction. Either it exercises this right, or it will perish. In some cases, we do indeed see villages perishing, as their rotten panchayats make deals. But many gram sabhas are on the right track. If the panchayat is incapable of planning, the residents of the village represented in the gram sabha can step right in.

You have around five months left. During this period, come up with an outline development plan for your village and get it accepted by the gram sabha. Then ensure it gets into the Regional Plan 2021. (Charles Correa, Edgar Ribeira and others have created the necessary space for this.) If you can get your ODP recognised, your village might just about survive. If you do not, or cannot, your village may lose its right to live. But do not blame anyone thereafter. Except yourself.