TEAM HERALD
PONDA: The Bhoma-Adcolna gram sabha unanimously passed a resolution to remove the scrap yards citing health and environmental issues.
When the issue of scrap yards came up for discussion, Deputy Sarpanch Damodar Naik said the panchayat did not issue any permission to the scrap yards. Interestingly, Naik assured to initiate action against the illegal scrap yards only after villagers raised the issue on Sunday.
According to information, since the last one year a number of scrap yards were established in a private property along the NH4A near a high school at Bhoma.
However, Naik’s assurance to remove the illegal scrap yards within one month after completing formalities irked villagers, who argued that there was no need to issue any notices since structures are illegal.
“I will write to the deputy collector and Ponda Police to remove the illegal scrap yards. The scrap yards are in private property and panchayat did not give permissions, but I assure to remove these scrap yards within a month,” said Naik.
During the meeting, the villagers took strong objection to panchayat’s acceptance of Rs 50,000 from an industrial unit at Kundaim Industrial Estate which had dumped huge quantity of slag along the village boundary.
It may be recalled that last year, the panchayat after inspecting had directed the industrial unit to stop dumping slag along the village boundary as villagers feared the huge quantity of slag could come down along with rain water and damage vegetation and affect houses.
“The industrial unit gave panchayat Rs 50,000 as fine since the unit did not obtained permission from us for using the land to dump slag,” said the deputy sarpanch.
“The land is private and was sold to industrial units. I assure that the panchayat will see to it that the industrial unit remove the huge quantity of slag and will also write to the IDC to build a wall on the Kundaim IDC boundary,” assured Naik.
However, the villagers questioned the authority of the panchayat to collect fine and condemned the incident.
A resolution was also passed requesting IDC to construct retaining wall along the Kundaim IDC boundary.
