‘Govt has failed to list heritage structures’

PANAJI: Despite repeated demands by local activists for heritage laws to be passed in Goa, the state government has failed to do the needful. It has not bothered to even notify its major heritage structures.
Goa’s is a multi-faceted heritage, including as it does Mesolithic-period rock-carvings, old Hindu shrines, Portugueseperiod churches and seminaries and vernacular-style bungalows.
“But alas, the political dispensation is more interested in promoting tourism than in systematically protecting the rich cultural fabric of Goa,’’ regrets Percival Noronha of the Indian Heritage Society. “What’s worse, it is a tourism culture that focuses on a clutch of famous beaches, churches and temples and ignores everything else,’’ adds Prajal Sakhardande, vice-chairman of the Goa Heritage Action Group.
This official negligence, the activists regret, has resulted in a number of vintage structures and areas worthy of preservation being vandalised in recent years.
Several old vernacular-style bungalows have been — and are being — pulled down or altered beyond recognition throughout the state.Mr Norohna points out that many ‘Gulfie Goans’ have sold their rural homesteads to newcomers who are renovating them without a care for the earlier aesthetic.
Lollipop-like houses now stick out of the sylvan landscape, quite spoiling the Konkan village bungalowscape. And in the towns, too, ill-conceived new buildings are ruining the skyline and architectural character of its gracious old settlements.
Mr Norohna and GHAG activists assert that though several ‘conservation’ zones were demarcated throughout Goa a few years ago, including in major towns such as Panaji, Margao and Mapusa, the government is doing nothing to regulate development in these areas. On the contrary, it is being bribed into allowing developers to flout building bylaws here and to change residential tracts to commercial ones. A case in point are the low-slung bungalow precincts such as Altino and Campal in Panaji, where ungainly tall buildings are springing up on the hill slopes.
According to Patricia Pinto, a heritage-minded member of the Panaji Municipal Council, the high-rise developments in Altino (facilitated by the recent deletion of an important clause in the development rules) have not only spoiled its skyline but also created serious physical problems in the local hills. “Scientific investigations have warned that all this reckless construction could lead to landslides in the area. We have moved the court to stop one such development,’’Ms Pinto says.
Ms Pinto believes that if this reckless construction activity is allowed to continue unchecked and heritage guidelines are not implemented soon in Goa, the place will lose the old world charm which lures thousands to it every year. “Goa could well look like Hubli or Belgaum in a decade’s time. And who will want to come here then?’’ she asks.
A top town-planning official agrees that the scenario is bleak on the urban development and heritage front. “But there’s nothing we can really do,’’ heinsists, “because every time we send the heritage legislation file to the minister, the government changes.’’
He reveals that his department has sent the ‘heritage notification’ file yet again a month ago to the minister for it to be signed. But whether it will be signed, he cannot say.
In the opinion of several local bureaucrats, only public pressure will help the cause of heritage conservation in Goa. Heritage groups such as GHAG must go on mobilising the public like they have done with the recently concluded Fontainhas Arts Festival and also go to court on critical issues.
These groups should bring any violations in building bylaws to their notice and also go to court on critical development issues, they say. The Goa government’s indifference dismays Mumbai-based heritage activist Shyam Chainani, who has been lobbying for heritage rules to be passed in several states. “The Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) wrote to all chief ministers in December 1995, recommending that its model draft heritage legislation be adopted expeditiously in their states,’’ he points out.
“The Goa government has been sent several reminders since. That it is still dragging its heels over the matter is simply dreadful.’’ A heritage structure of a sylvan seaside state.