SIOLIM: Except a lone PWD JE, all most all government officials stayed away from attending a joint meeting held on Saturday with the Siolim Marna Village Development Committee (VDC) much to the annoyance of villagers.
The lone official who turned up from the meeting had to face the ire of the public over the pathetic condition of the roads in the village.
As was resolved at the last Siolim Marna gram sabha, the meeting was fixed by the VDC along with other govt officials namely PWD roads, PWD water division, Health, Power and WRD.
Except Pednekar, a junior engineer of the PWD road section, all others abstained.
Villagers then cornered the Swayampurna Mitra Prakash and directed him to report to the higher ups and initiate action against officials who were conspicuous by their absence.
The PWD JE Pednekar was tounge-tied when he was questioned on the miserable condition of roads in Siolim besides absence of footpaths, gutters, constant digging, pot holes and pedestrian crossings.
Villagers sought to know as to what locus standi the PWD and power department had to touch the roads since digging was banned from May 15 upto Oct 15.
The controversial road widening issue also came under scanner with
Pednekar admitting that it had given rise to several other issues like improper drainage , dug up roads etc.
The issue of illegal sign boards on the way to the bridge was also discussed and villagers wondered whether the road was widened to enable such illegal signboards to come up.
Amrut Agarwadekar opined that in the panchayat raj system, the local self governing bodies should be strengthened and grievances need to be redressed but pointed out that if officials are not sensitive to the issues of the general public then this so called swayampurna Goa slogan is a ‘farce’.