The malfunctioning panchayat bodies both in North and South Goa need to be woken up from their slumber by the government. These so-called grassroots elected representatives of the people called panchas, have established a very dangerous tradition of placing self before service. They exploit the very people and village that have elected them. Bribery and corruption start from this level. This is the training ground for future MLAs who later become ministers. At that stage what can we expect from them? By then, there are many who have already turned into criminals who think that there’s nothing wrong in asking for and receiving a bribe or extorting money. It becomes a mutual admiration society ~ I need your votes and you need my protection. In every village it is almost the same scenario. The panchas are thriving because of the bribes they accept from migrants and unscrupulous elements in the village. The weakest organisation at the village level is the comunidade, and migrants are encouraged by these elected panchas to encroach on comunidade land. Here they are safe, as the comunidade has no powers to safeguard itself and requests from comunidade presidents and attorneys to the administrators are not taken note of or acted upon. Thereafter the pockets are jingling, they are given protection. Voters/election cards and ration cards are arranged and thus they build up a permanent vote bank. This way they have a very handy block of votes to aid them in their re-election each time. Some panchas have been elected over and over again for 25 to 30 years.
The founding fathers intended the panchayat to be a training ground for rural illiterate masses so they could learn to serve the people better. Unfortunately, this is not happening and the very purpose of training people so they can accept greater responsibilities in the community, has been thrown into the dustbin of history. Elections to the village panchayat was to be on an apolitical basis. But we find leaders of political parties floating their panels for these elections. Here again the basic requirement has been a casualty. The government, courts and the election commission just look on helplessly. So matters are not set right, and they become an accepted pattern.
This has given rise to the unprecedented and alarming mushrooming of bribery and corruption. This is also the origin of vast sums of unaccounted black money. Bribes are demanded and given for all illegalities, especially for land grab and construction of houses. There is no need for ownership papers, applications or architect’s drawings. All is well till the bubble bursts one fateful day. Then all hell is let lose.
Why are various village panchayat committees facing regular ‘no confidence’ motions’? Barely six months after a new committee is installed, the bickering starts all over again over the sharing of the spoils of office. Money is the root of all evil! Many village panchayat bodies do not even have waste/rubbish bins displayed in prominent localities to collect garbage.
A few villages like Calangute are collecting garbage door to door, more or less, but its disposal leaves much to be desired. Some years ago, a war-like situation developed between Saligao and Calangute, as the trucks carrying Calangute garbage to their disposal site on the hill, had to pass through Saligao and the workers not wanting to negotiate the bad kuccha stretch of road to the disposal site, used to unload their trucks on the Saligao land thus creating much resentment amongst the local residents of Saligao. The High Court finally ruled that the disposal of garbage will be done scientifically as laid down by the GOI in the Waste Management Rules, 2005. The State government was asked to provide a suitable area for a garbage treatment site. But many years later there is no compliance with these instructions. In the mean time the leachate from the waste, has been slowly but surely percolating through the soil and it has been contaminating the nearest wells in Saligao on the slopes of the hill. This will further spread to the other end of the village and spread also to the nearest villages like Nagoa and Parra. Besides the foul smell and air pollution can seriously affect the health of the residents of Saligao exposed to the smoke and carbon monoxide from fires lit in the dump.
The working of the panchayat bodies, need an overhaul. Today the panchas who ostensibly come forward to do social service, get a tidy stipend and urgently need to adhere to laid down rules.
We, the people, will have to take this matter in hand and force the government to act in a positive manner, so that the running of such an important basic grassroots institution as the panchayat bodies start to do the job for which they were intended. Jai Hind.
