Remembering Edgar Francis Ribeiro: Champion of bottom-up planning

Renowned urban planner, architect and educator Edgar Francis Ribeiro wore many hats, but he will be best remembered as a champion of “bottom-up” planning in India and as the man responsible for much of Goa’s environmental conservation. Former chief town planner of India, Ribeiro passed away on April 24 at his home in Porvorim, Goa, at the age of 96.

 

Ribeiro was also the advisor (spatial planning) to the Planning Commission from 1983 to 1988. Post-retirement, as a member of the task force for the Regional Plan 2021 of Goa, which was prepared between 2008 and 2012, he is known to have taken a token honorarium of Re 1 per month. One of the first things Ribeiro did in this role was to ask all government departments in the state to share all eco-sensitive data they had, along with any topographical information. Details of all rice plantations for which subsidy was availed were mapped out as paddy land that had to be protected.

 

 

“It was a lesson he learnt during his stint in the fact-finding committee on Lakshadweep Islands. He said that there were a lot of violations which could not be punished because the area had not been mapped,” said Tahir Noronha, researcher at University of California and regional planner and architect, who worked closely with Ribeiro in the Save Old Goa committee and later on several other projects. “He would say, ‘In government today, anything can be changed by doctoring the file, except a map.’”

 

Ribeiro was instrumental in getting World Heritage sites in Old Goa notified. He was also closely involved in the drafting of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments passed in Parliament in 1992. Noronha recalls how Ribeiro was the biggest influence in bringing the principles of the 74th Amendment — which gave constitutional powers to urban local bodies — to his vision for drawing up the Regional Plan for Goa, ensuring villages and gram panchayats were involved in the exercise. He quit the task force in 2010 since important urban areas of Goa like Panjim and Vasco were being kept out of it, and he wanted to have an overall plan for the state.

 

“Edgar did not want his signature on a plan that would leave out a crucial part of the state from the regional plan. He always stood by his principles. He was very upset when, in 2010, the government amalgamated building rules for the entire state of Goa, municipality or panchayat. He objected to it and was firm that it should be scrapped,” said Claude Alvares, director of environmental NGO Goa Foundation.

 

His colleagues say that whatever paddy fields Goa has today is because of his advocacy. Known for his impeccable ethical standards, Ribeiro’s role was also crucial in protecting almost 70 per cent of Goa by mapping the slopes of the state and ensuring that high slopes were designated as no-construction areas.

 

Perhaps it was his commitment to this idea that when he needed to get a bridge on the naala behind his house fixed just a few years ago, he managed to get the job done through his gram panchayat and not through any bureaucrat or MLA, to the surprise of many.

 

Ribeiro, as an educator, was the director of the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in New Delhi and chairperson of SPA, Bhopal.

 

“We have lost someone with a deeper mind capable of expansive and wide thinking and who had a genuine interest in Goa and Goans at heart,” said Arminio Ribeiro, Goa-based architect.

 

Among his many interests, his friends recall his love for classical music and the cabinet of liqueurs collected from all his travels.

 

He was a graduate from the last Royal Institute of British Architects-accredited batch at Sir JJ College of Architecture, Mumbai, in the early 1950s. He joined the Town and Country Planning College at the University of Manchester, UK, thereafter.

 

Noronha said one of the things that upset him most was the mushrooming of swimming pools in the villages of Goa and how he had not fathomed such a scenario.

   

Ribeiro showed how quiet integrity can move mountains — or, in his case, ensure mountains are not moved.