Team Herald

MARGAO: Salcete Block Development Officer Amitesh Shirvoikar has justified the removal of “any other business” from the agenda of gram sabhas saying that it was done as per Panchayat Raj Act.

Reacting to some gram sabhas objecting to the Director of Panchayats circular not to include “any other business” in the agenda for the gram sabhas, he said that the Director had only reminded the people about what is mentioned in the Panchayat Raj Act.

He pointed out that the functions of gram sabha have been clearly mentioned in Section 6 of the Act and in view of that argued that as what is to be discussed and deliberated at the gram sabha was already mentioned there was no need to have “any other business” at gram sabhas.

“It has been observed that people would raise any issue and discuss anything under AOB and that used to not only extend the time of the gram sabhas but also create a lot of bad blood,” he said.

Meanwhile, the BDO said that since the training of all the 30 village development committees to prepare the Gram Panchayat Development Plan is complete, he would strive to get all the villages to prepare their development plan by February 2018.

He said that besides the sarpanch, three members of the village development committee along with the panchayat secretary and Gram Rojgar Sahayak of the panchayat were trained for two days by Goa Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development (GIPART) in preparing the village development plan.

He said that the VDCs have been trained to prepare the social and resource maps by visiting anganwadis and various groups like youth and farmers and accordingly assess the requirements of the village based on which the village development plan is to be prepared.

“Collecting statistics is also an important part of preparing the plan as one needs to know the composition of the village to plan for its development and improvement,” he said.

When it was pointed out that some villages were represented only by the Sarpanch and secretary he assured to get GIPART to conduct similar training sessions for villages that ask for it so that more people can help in preparing the village development plan and make it truly participative in nature as aimed.