Claude Alvares recounts how one of the country’s biggest Delhi based developers has obtained permissions for its project at Dabolim, subverting every public official in the administration (both State and Centre). This article appeared in two parts in the Herald, Goa.

The latest offering of Goa’s landscape for sale is on billboards in Delhi. DLF is promising a piece of paradise “with a view of the sea” for an excruciatingly stiff price of Rs.54 lakh (figure demanded over the table). Originally, the proposal was to raise 580 flats on a plot of land in Dabolim village. Now the project has grown to 700 flats, clubhouse, guest rooms and a sewage plant that hangs precariously between future DLF residents and the Goan residents settled peacefully below the site for several decades.

The problem is that the project is to be located on the graveyard of a dense forest on steep slopes because that kind of natural asset is all that Goa in fact has left for such speculative housing. The project is not intended to meet the needs of Goans for a house. They simply will not have that kind of money.

The project has the careless sanction of the Ministry for Environment and Forests, the Chief Town Planner of the Goa Government, the Mmormugao Planning and Development Authority and the Village Panchayat of Chicalim in whose jurisdiction it is located.

Surprisingly, all these permissions have come without hassle in a State that forbids construction on slopes (due to the inherent instability of laterite) and which is restrained by Supreme Court’s orders from activity in forested areas. The manner in which the approvals have been obtained is a good lesson in how the rich and powerful manage to take all authorities for a ride, especially when the authorities want to be taken for a ride. The story so far:

Anand Bose, Somnath Zuarkar’s son-in-law, gets Vithal and Indira Naik, a couple who own Survey No.43/1 of Dabolim village, to authorize him to development the plot of 1,02,000 sq.mts and sell it on their behalf. Bose settles off the four mundcars on the plot, partitioning off their plots – totally around 8400 sq.mts – from the main plot.

Meanwhile, the Government under the sweet influence of developers, has issued an order exempting certain classes of land from conversion sanad if they can prove that there was a structure on the plot when the last survey was conducted in 1971. Though the mundcars’ houses and plots have been partitioned of, Bose files for an exemption from conversion on their account on 29.1.2007. The following day, with impressive speed, Levinson Martins grants the exemption based on a false certificate issued by the MPDA that the entire survey is settlement zone. (And people complain that Deputy Collectors never act!) The exemption saves the Naiks, Bose and the next developers, Saravati, from approximately Rs.25 lakh. (From the likes of these types and others, Government loses eventually more than a crore in conversion charges.)

Barely a month later, on 26.11.2007, Bose resells 77,300 sq.mts of the plot to Saravati Developers and Constructions for Rs.29 crores.

In view of these astronomical sums, the saving of Rs.25 lakhs on conversion is small change for the developers. The actual saving is in the circumvention of several orders of the High Court and the Supreme Court which a) do not allow construction on slopes above 25% and b) which do not permit activity in forested plots. Since the High Court has ordered that no conversion sanad will be issued without the file going to the Forest Department first, the solution is to bypass the need to go for a sanad in the first place. That objective is thus achieved.

In the meanwhile, Anand Bose is able to procure permissions from the MPDA and from the village Panchayat of Chicalim without any problem even though the area is forest and proposed on slopes above 25%.

If MPDA could do the same for ordinary Goans, we would find it the most efficient of planning authorities. But it never does. Take a look at the dates and marvel at the speed at which MPDA can work for its chosen ones.

Anand Bose applies for provisional NOC for subdivision of the plot of 94,370 metres to the MPDA on 23.1.2007. The MPDA issues the NOC on 9.2.2007.

He files an application for the same to the Village Panchayat on 24.1.2007. The Panchayat passes a resolution on 25.1.2007 and issues the NOC on 30.1.2007.

The Panchayat receives the application for final NOC on 8.3.3007, passes a resolution on the same day and issues the order on 12.3.2007.

Anand Bose applies for construction licenses on 27.9.2007, panchayat passes the necessary resolution on 1.10.2007 and issues the licenses on 3.10.2007.

So why is everybody complaining that their applications to planning authorities and village panchayats sometimes two years, together with a lot of visiting of offices and harassment. The case of Anand Bose indicates the complete contrary.

After his sale of 77,300 sq.mts to Saravati for Rs.29 crore, Anand Bose transfers all the permissions and NOCs he has obtained to Saravati Developers.

Saravati now has 77,300 sq.mts., whereas the earlier permissions are for the plot of 94,000 sq.mts. So Saravati asks the MPDA to amalgamate the plots and grant a fresh subdivision. MPDA receives their application on 28.8.2008 and grants the provisional NOC for the new subdivision on the same day. Wow!

On 1.9.2008, Saravati applies for final NOC for subdivision and simultaneously submits development plans for 580 residential units, with club house having 35 rooms and other features. The Panchayat forwards the new proposal to the MPDA on 15.9.2008.

The proposal comes up before the MPDA in November 2008 though it is not on the agenda. It comes up under ”Any Other Business” when the Deputy Speaker (who has posed recently for the press with a free garbage compactor given to the Chicalim village by DLF) wants to know why the file has not been put up for approval of the Authority. Victoria Fernandes is chairperson. She says the project is categorized as a mega housing project. The MPDA cannot therefore discuss the matter without a site inspection to verify its infrastructure and other requirements. The matter is deferred for a site inspection. This decision is not communicated by R.K. Pandita (Member Secretary, MPDA) to Saravati knowing full well the latter will file an appeal for deemed approval on expiry of three months. On 13.1.2009, Saravati takes the matter out of the MPDA and files an appeal before the Town and Country Planning Board.

The Board takes up the matter on 11.2.2009, but Pandita does not attend on grounds that he is not feeling well. The Board defers the matter and then conveniently meets several months later, by which time Saravati claims it now has deemed approval since the Board too has not taken a decision in three months.

Saravati did not pay conversion charges and now it gets by without paying development charges. When an RTI request is posed in respect of whether development charges have been taken, MPDA says in writing it has no knowledge. This is a fine example of a welfare state, where the poor pay taxes and the rich are waived conversion and development charges.

Saravati now demands that the Panchayat grant it construction licenses. The Panchayat decides the Gram Sabha must look into the project. A few days later, on 17.7.09, the Panchayat reverses its stand and issues the licenses. Let me quote the reason set out in the Panchayat’s construction license and you should hope that this might happen to you as well some day:

“As regards to the approval to be obtained from MPDA, Vasco which is further deemed to be approved under Section 44 of the Town and Country Planning Act which further deemed to be approved by the Planning Board constituted further it is deemed to be approved under Section 45 of the Town and Country Planning Act by the Planning Board constituted under the Law & on the basis of legal opinion obtained & given by Adv. Zeller C de Souza is considered by the Panchayat vide resolution dated 9.7.2009.”

So a Rs.130 crore project for the rich of Delhi gets by with two deeming approvals.

You may say this is predictable behavior from authorities towards a well-heeled developer who knows how to smoothen the flow of his applications and get his permissions. But what of the Government of India? Doesn’t the project require environment clearance. It does. But as we shall now see, no problem there as well!

How Saravati Got its Environment Clearance

In April 2008, Saravati files an application for environment clearance with the Ministry of Environment & Forests. As per the procedure, the proposal goes in June to the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC). Among the issues raised by the EAC is a demand for a contour map which would indicate slopes. There is also a query raised about how a residential project can have 36 guest rooms. The project proponent is asked to get a clearance from the Central Ground Water Board. The EAC minutes of the meeting record a conclusion that environment clearance is not recommended for the present.

The file comes back to the EAC three months later in October 2008. This time the EAC simply abandons its earlier queries and lists instead a new set of queries which are far more innocuous. Gone is the need to produce data on slope contours or an NOC from the Central Ground Water Board. Instead considerations like “dead-ends of roads within the plot having proper roundabouts” and “treated water being used to flush toilets” are the points upon which the EAC decides the project will now be cleared.

In a short while the project proponents submit the relevant details and in December 2008 the EAC, now assured that “all queries are answered”, recommends environment clearance with a “silver” grading to boot. The environment clearance is issued by the Ministry of Environment on 2.2.2009. The two most important environmental impact issues of the Saravati/DLF project – construction on steep slopes and forest – are both immaculately kept out of the committee’s deliberations.

It needs to be noted here that the effective functioning of the EAC depends to a great extent on the integrity of its member secretary. The EAC meets every two months. Each time the committee meets dozens of projects are placed before it for approval. The minutes run into several pages. All members never attend all meetings. In the circumstances, earlier minutes are not closely re-examined, nor are salient features of earlier recommendations recalled. The member-secretary who prepares the agenda notes and writes the minutes and who is eminently approachable to Delhi developers can, with little difficulty, take the “expert” committee into whichever hole it wants.

But can the EAC itself be absolved of blame even in such circumstances?

Hardly. The location of every plot in the country is available on Survey General of India topo sheets. If an EAC is not able to access such easily available data, this must reflect on the competence of its experts. Faced with the fact that the plot had slopes above 25% gradient, there was no chance of approval, for in 2000, the Ministry had accepted in toto the report of the Committee on “Identifying Parameters for Designating Ecologically Sensitive Areas in India” headed by Pronab Sen, Adviser to the Planning Commission, which recommended no clearance for development in such terrain. There are also now High Court orders.

Similarly with forested areas. Even school kids know how to get Google Earth pictures for any plot in the country. The resolution is so good that foresters claim they can distinguish even individual species of trees on the ground. The Google Earth picture of the site under discussion shows it having dense vegetation. A single site visit would also have confirmed that the area is thickly forested. But the EAC never visits a site, nor does it show any inclination to have facts independently verified. It seems like nothing can be done when we are dealing with people who want to shut their eyes or worse, are simply willing to have the wool pulled over their eyes.

In October 2008, the State Government’s Task Force on planning for Goa in the year 2021 demarcated the Saravati/DLF site as a “no-development” zone on grounds of its impermissible gradient (more than 25%). The Task Force is headed by the Chief Minister. De facto chairman is internationally famous Charles Correa and assisting him on the Task Force is Mr Edgar Ribeiro, former Chief Town Planner of the Government of India. They relied upon Survey of India topo sheets. Thus the Goa Govt could not have recommended the project for environment clearance.

However, under the EIA notification 2006, anyone can apply directly to the Ministry of Environment for environment clearance bypassing the State Government. Ever since the Ministry dis-embowelled the entire procedure and turned it into a set of empty formalities to be speedily gone through – data or no data – environment clearance has become easier to get than a driver’s learning license. In fact, you don’t even have to submit a photograph of yourself.

Once you have it in your pocket, all other clearances come automatically. The environment clearance is granted within a maximum period of six months. For housing projects there is not even the courtesy of a public hearing. There is therefore no scope for any inputs from the State Government side or from the public. The applicant can fib and get away with whatever it wants an extremely gullible EAC to believe.

Thus the environment clearance becomes a label trademarked by the Ministry for officially sponsored forest and hill destruction. That the issue of environment clearances has ruined the reputation of the Ministry is already common knowledge. The Prime Minister himself – as Cabinet Minister of Environment – acknowledged before the States’ environment ministers’ conference in August 2009 that the ECs had become a source of corruption. It is most unfortunate that the new Minister of State for Environment – who is trying hard to dispel the notion that the Ministry is a red light area – has not succeeded in introducing any changes in this most important section of the department which has actually pioneered the ecological destruction of the country through its atrocious clearances.

Already the Ministry, in the short space of two years, has issued environment clearances for over 150 mines in Goa cumulatively involving the excavation, dumping and extraction of some 120 million tonnes of mud and ore annually, sanctioning unparalleled destruction of Goa’s interior, forested areas. Environment clearances are being granted now to airports, more mines, four lane highways, bridges, sea bridges, mega housing – all in a tiny state that is not more than 3200 sq.km.

In an unprecedented move, Alex Sequeira, Goa’s Environment Minister wrote to Jairam Ramesh, officially protesting the policy of granting such clearances without even the knowledge or consent of the State authorities and mostly on the basis of false or deficient environment impact assessments.

Can Goa’s environment survive this onslaught? Hardly. The coastal parts of Goa already look as if they have been battered by a typhoon of concrete and garbage. Thanks to unrelenting mining, the interior areas look like the surface of the moon. The Environment Ministry in the meanwhile is considering environment clearances for eight more five star hotels in Goa (all owned by Delhi businessmen) and even more group housing projects for sale to speculators. It appears it will cease its efforts only when the last tree and the last blade of grass in Goa is overrun, climate change and sea-level rise notwithstanding.

Ends