Unwise counsel in Cuncolim
Ministers may make the rules, but they have to be based on laws. Powerful though they may be, ministers cannot make and break rules on whims. Their decisions must follow due process. Therefore, Urban Development Minister Joaquim Alemao’s recent declaration that no construction file can be approved by a civic body without taking the concerned ward councillor into confidence is a pure exercise in loud thinking. It has no force in law. Civic officials are not bound by it.
Alemao apparently made the statement on Monday at the Cuncolim Municipal Council. He was reacting to demands of citizens in the wake of an agitation by local people against a construction license issued by the municipality for a bungalow at Adibandh in Cuncolim. He went on to warn the municipal engineer that he would be ‘sacked’ if any file is passed without taking the concerned ward councillor into confidence.
We hold no brief for this bungalow. If it has been approved in violation of rules or condoning any illegalities, the license ought to be instantly withdrawn. If local people object to it on some other grounds, they must get a sympathetic hearing by the chief officer. We do not wish to comment on the specifics of this case.
But we do strongly object to Mr Alemao’s new ‘rule’, announced only verbally, that “the concerned councillor(s) should be taken into account before passing any file, whether it is for a compound wall or a house”. As it is, people have problems complying with the complex paperwork required to construct anything legally. To add one more barrier is highly counterproductive. That this obstacle should be a politician is even worse.
Mr Alemao is absolutely right when he says that a councillor has the right to know about any construction plan in his ward. But it does not mean (s)he has the right to dictate which construction can go ahead and which cannot. The latter is tantamount to giving councillors absolute veto powers over voters; something that is untenable in a democracy.
“Treat this as my order,” the minister is reported to have told Cuncolim municipal officials. If that is what he expects, let him come out with a proper government order to the effect. Nowhere in the country do elected councillors have veto power over construction in their wards. All approvals and permissions are supposed to be issued by officials strictly as per the rules. And no amount of grandstanding by ministers should change that.
It may or may not be true that the problem over the bungalow in Cuncolim arose because, as the minister claims, “the ward councillor was kept in the dark”. But one cannot change a rule because of one stray case. The fact is that even municipal chairpersons – leave alone councillors – are not normally taken into confidence before approving construction files. There is a very good reason for this. They have no right to interfere in the issuance of construction licenses. But this does not mean the municipal officials can refuse to furnish information to councillors about construction licenses they have issued.
A stiff dose
How far have we fallen? Now, drug peddlers can beat up policemen in Goa and nearly get away with it. After Anti-Narcotic Cell (ANC) constable Mahableshwar Eknath Sawant was beaten up by drug peddlers outside a shack in Calangute, the police only registered a non-cognisable (NC) offence of ‘simple hurt’. It was only after x-rays showed a broken nasal bone that ‘attempt to murder’ charges were laid.
This is utterly shameful. It hints at a close nexus between the druglords and the state’s law and order machinery. Calangute MLA Agnelo Fernandes’ prophesy about the government and pimps & peddlers might yet come true…
