From green to brown in Goa

AAs dusk falls, a handful of villagers gather in front of a temple painted yellow in Goa’s Palem village, about 10 kilometers from the state capital Panaji. They are looking at copies of crumpled zoning maps and documents of the Town and Country Planning (TCP) department.

The streets of Palem come alive with colors ahead of Goa’s spring festival Shigmo. Side by side, the village is decorated with banners reading “Save Palem Siridao Village; Say No to Changes in Zone (39A)” and writing in Kokani: “Amchem Udak Amka Jai (Our water to us)”.

Among the group is Vasu Kankolikar (42), who says, “Many objections, suggestions and appeals were made to the TCP, but they rejected us. If we don’t fight them, our green umbrellas will gradually turn yellow, then red and they will sell it to make grey.” Mr. Kankolikar is a resident of Palem and a former sarpanch.

He was one of at least 2,000 people who sat in protest from 21 to 27 February at Azad Maidan in Palam, Panaji, the site of previous protests around the Act. Palem falls in the St. Andre constituency, one of the 40 Legislative Assembly seats in Goa. Revolutionary Goans Party MLA Viresh Borkar sat on a hunger strike along with others and protested outside the house of TCP minister Vishwajit Rane in Dona Paula, less than 10 km from Panaji. Rane is part of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been in power in Goa for 14 years. Mr. Rane did not answer the questions.

The protest, and many like it over the past two years, have been against Goa’s Section 39A, which came into effect under the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act, 2024. This stream allows the conversion of ecologically sensitive areas, such as forests, hills and agricultural lands, into areas for settlements. Goans believe it will open up green spaces to real estate development, disrupt the ecology, harm the livelihood of people like fishermen and plunge the state into civil crisis. Goa is a collection of 320 inhabited villages (2011 census) in two districts, with only one city, its capital, Panaji.

“The problem with Section 39A is that it destroys the concept of planning. Every property owner is now a planner for their own plot and can decide what they want to build,” says Norma Alvares, a Pará-based lawyer and environmental activist. “The Regional Plan (2011) was designed to protect the ecology of Goa, with 83% of the land classified as eco-sensitive. While the Regional Plan identifies 17-18 categories of eco-sensitive areas, Section 39A recognizes only seven.” For example, garden areas, which are treated as ESZ-2 under the zoning plan, where only restricted development is permitted, can be converted under Section 39A. Under the regional plan, ESZ-1 areas completely prohibit any development.

In 2018, the Goa Assembly passed an amendment to the TCP Act, bringing in Section 16B that allows the Chief Town Planner to change the area in the regional plan. Due to intense criticism it was canceled in 2024. Meanwhile, Section 17(2) was introduced in March 2023. This allowed private owners to convert purchased land by contacting the TCP department to “correct” any “inadvertent errors” in the regional plan. The owners could do this without public consultation. The Goa bench of the Bombay High Court read out the amendment in April 2025.

“Section 39A came out in February 2024, furthering the legacy of land grabbing,” says Tahir Noronha, a Neura-village-based architect and regional planner. They have compiled data from the Goa Government Gazette, and found that applications have been submitted to the TCP department to convert 68 lakh square meters of land across Goa into settlement areas. He says that 13.6% of this has already been unlocked.

land closed

The strike ended on 27 February. The protesters say Chief Minister Promod Sawant told them he would suspend land conversion proposals under the TCP Act for the St. Andre constituency. He also reportedly said that three FIRs lodged against the protesters would be cancelled. “The FIRs have not been canceled yet,” says Manoj Parab, a protester called to the Panaji police station.

Parab, Borkar, Kankolikar and 1,500 unidentified people were named in the FIR, filed between February 21 and 26, citing “unlawful assembly” and missing documents from the TCP office. “If identified, some people may lose government jobs or be transferred far away from home,” a man in his 20s standing in a group in front of the Palam temple said on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Borkar says, “Our fight is to abolish 39A and introduce the Persons of Goan Origin (POGO) Bill, giving priority to local people. We also want a law to ban the sale of agricultural and forest land and a Goa Panchayat Raj Act that defines the scope of mega projects and related clearances.”

Tushar Gawas (28), who lives in Palem, points towards the pond and the hills beyond. Scrolling through documents on his phone, he explains that the TCP office has applications to convert 84,137 square meters of land into settlement land. “So far 5,000 square meters in Palem has been cleared and converted under 39A. The entire regional plan maps will turn orange, showing settlements instead of green cover,” says Mr. Gavas.

This means that individuals or companies can buy land and apply for its conversion, allowing the construction of housing or commercial properties. The analysis shows that in Pernem alone – close to Manohar International Airport – 10.2 lakh square meters has been temporarily converted into settlement area. Noronha data shows that so far, North Goa is more affected by district area conversion than South Goa.

“Basically, 39A allows big people to move without the consent of villagers. What people want is to discuss these projects in our gram sabhas. If a builder wants to bring a project in our village, that builder will have to come to the gram sabha instead of making a deal at the ministerial level,” says Mr Noronha, highlighting that mostly big real estate companies are applying for 39A.

He says that changing the zone started in 1988. From then to 2006, the government added approximately 14 million square meters of new settlement land. In 2006, a new regional plan came into force. “Villagers saw that the scheme was turning many villages into settlement lands, which led to one of the largest public movements, the Save Goa campaign,” says Mr Noronha. The plan was denotified after protests.

One complication in Goa’s land laws is the Code of Comunidades, a Portuguese-era document created in 1933, which deals with community-owned land that can be leased. After independence from colonial rule in 1961, the Code ran parallel to the laws governing the rest of India.

“Many decisions nowadays ignore these original comunidad plans and treat such lands as if they have no established use. The confusion arises from regional planning, which has been in effect for more than a decade without a clear transition to a new land-use framework. This has resulted in interim mechanisms like 39A becoming permanent solutions,” says architect-environmentalist Elsa Fernandes.

She says the terms “occupant” and “tenant” emerged in land records after 1961. “Forms I and XIV under the Goa Land Revenue Code reflect possession and do not establish ownership, which has long led to confusion over land ownership and transactions in the state,” she says.

all for a view

Standing on a hilltop in the village of Ella, Glenn Cabral looks toward the Mandovi River. Behind that is the Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount. Pointing to the notified land being converted from garden land, he says, “People are buying the idea at the cost of destroying the environment. Do they realize that soon there will be no scenes left in Goa at this pace due to construction?”

Old Goa – of which Ella is a part – is spread across seven hills in the northern part of the state. According to Goa Gazette, at least 2.6 lakh square meters of land is proposed for zone change in the area. In Ella, applications for land conversion are around 1.6 lakh square metres. Parts of this land fall within the impact zone of the Carambolim Lake Wetland and the buffer zone of the 16th-century chapel, Our Lady of the Mount. The villagers have lodged an objection with the TCP against a Delhi-based construction and civil engineering company purchasing the property on the hill. The company has applied for land negotiation.

“Bison used to be very rare; we never saw leopards in Goa. Now we can see them easily. These are signs that their homes are being encroached upon,” says Mr Cabral, adding that it is now rare to see the exotic birds. A railway tunnel passes under the hill.

carry a load

According to the Goa Gazette, in Candolim, in Badrez taluka, 15 km from Ella, applications have been made to convert 29,764 square meters of garden land, natural cover and cremation area into a settlement area by a man. The Calangute Constituency Forum (CCF), a citizens’ association based in Candolim, objected to this change and protested, with CCF member Agnelo Barreto leading a signature campaign.

“Part of the area is located around the lighthouse and Fort Aguada, which is marked as a heritage site, and the plateau is marked as a disaster management zone. These violations harm the local ecological balance. At least 50 trees have been cut down on the slopes,” says Mr. Barreto, looking at a map of Candolim from the TCP department.

Arpora village in Bardez taluka and Chimbel in Tisawadi taluka are facing similar problems. “There is a reason why these forests are protected. This hill and its forests provide environmental services to people. They are a buffer against pollution, keep the soil stable and protect biodiversity. You cannot privatize a public hill and put up a gate and deploy a security guard. If the hills are not stabilized, there is a possibility of soil erosion and the area may be prone to floods,” says Arpora resident, Susan. Koshy, walking to the base of the hill, points to a gate installed there, as the locals call it. A public path to climb the hill.

Chimbel is 20 km from Arpora, where villagers sat on strike for 45 days in January to protest against government projects of a 17-storey building, administration pillar and a nine-storey Unity Mall to be built near the lake, which is a source of water for nearby farmers. “They suspended the project. But were these projects needed? Is there a carrying capacity in the village?” Govind Shirodkar, chairman of the biodiversity management committee, says a person has been selected from within the panchayat to represent the ecological interests of the village.

Goans mostly have problems with common lands and business interests in eco-sensitive areas. “Section 39A brings out people who have no connection with the land or its people. They want swimming pools for every bungalow. When outsiders come with the intention of turning Goa into Delhi or Haryana or wherever they come from, the village is completely torn apart,” says Ms Alvares.