MARGAO: The Sao Jose de Areal gram sabha while approving a nearly Rs 40 lakh deficit budget for the year 2019-20 also resolved that the panchayat should promote inter ward football tournament amongst other proposals.
The budget estimates as presented project receipts of Rs. 5,52,94,300 with opening balance being Rs. 1,20,64,610 and major receipts being from government grants to the tune of Rs. 4.5 crores while Rs. 38,04,300 is expected from taxes and Rs. 20,14,00 is expected from fees including construction licenses.
The total expenditure is pegged at Rs. 5,92,35,000 with Rs. 34.62 lakhs being the expenditure on administration followed by Health and Sanitation where Rs. 12.15 lakhs is sought to be spent and Rs. 1,18,50,000 is provided for expenditure on public works.
The budget has also provided Rs. 2 crore each to be received from the Scheduled Caste funds for construction of a Sanskruti Bhavan and another Rs. 2 crore from the Sports Department to develop a sports ground even though the panchayat has not identified any land for the Sanskruti Bhavan.
While Sarpanch Perris D’Costa opined that the ground maintained by SAG behind Goa Carbon Ltd plant be developed first the villagers demanded that the panchayat ground be developed first till it was pointed out that the panchayat does not have any ground of its own.
Freddy Travasso’s suggestion that the panchayat allot Rs. 1 lakh for organizing inter ward football tournament and only Rs. 50 thousand for an inter village football tournament was accepted by the around 80 villagers present as they said this would promote the local people’s talent in the game.
The gram sabha also approved the appointment of a temporary clerk and peon to prepare an inventory of all the documents of the panchayat and also get the records digitized and the temporary posting would be for six months with the clerk being computer savvy.
The gram sabha decided to engage a new lawyer to represent the panchayat in the appeals filed against it by Shaikh Shamsudin Mukhtar who has filed a writ before the High Court as the panchayat did not clear his three projects even though the Additional Director of Panchayats had ordered the panchayat secretary to issue the construction license.
A lot of time was spent discussing this issue as the sarpanch could not furnish the reason why the proposals were rejected and after much delay the necessary letter was found in the file which showed that the files were rejected as the infrastructure could not take the load of these buildings.
Some of the villagers said they would join the petition as interveners and said they would bear the expenses of their advocate while asking the panchayat to manage the fees of the advocate engaged by the panchayat even though the Sarpanch said it was becoming difficult for the panchayat to pay the legal fees.
“We are permitted to spend only Rs. 30,000 as legal fees even though the director has verbally told that the permissible fees would be raised to Rs. 1 lakh,” said Perris while disclosing that he had spent around Rs. 70 thousand on behalf of the panchayat to pay the legal fees.
The gram sabha also resolved asking the government to come out with a Sentinel like scheme to fine matka bookies, people throwing garbage by the road side, illegally land filling and in fact the panchayat was asked to levy fine on those using plastic.
