The Dynamics of Land Use Planning A Case Study of Goa

Abstract

Faced with a rising population and growing economy, India faces acute pressures on its land resources making it imperative to initiate land-use planning. The Union government has been repeatedly advocating this to state-governments and in 2013 proposed a model framework employing proper scientific and technical procedures . This research has sought to review an actual experience of land-use planning as lessons about real practices, complexities and outcomes in an Indian context could be drawn. This research has sought to do this by reviewing the case of land-use planning in the Indian state of Goa, which has been implementing land-use plans for over thirty years. The research was driven by three broad goals: understand the institutional context and objectives of land-use planning, evaluate if the plans achieved their intended objectives, and account for the factors shaping planning outcomes and explain instances when plans deviated from their stated objectives. The research found that land-use planning was undertaken primary by preparing regional plans constituting of a socio-economic vision which is then translated into a spatial scheme through land-use plans. From 1986 until date, Goa initiated three such exercises. The objectives of these plans have consistently expressed concerns about balancing: (a) economic progress with (b) the protection of agricultural land and (c) conservation of the environment. When evaluating the plans, this research observed that all plans, while expressing the above three goals simultaneously, devised a series of policy manoeuvres through which zones were changed in controversial ways. The broad tendency of these zone changes was to rezone areas having agricultural and forest zones enabling the conversion of land for settlement, industrial and mining purposes. The research aggregated all these changes carried out from 1986 to date and found them to be significant and have compromised the objective of balancing the three objectives motivating all the regional plans. The research