In the past, they either resigned, or got elected or were served with a notice of no-confidence. Some of the alleged reasons cited for the change, are: misappropriation of funds, not being taken into confidence, interference by politicians and vested interests. Sometimes, there is a mutual agreement among the panchas, to rotate power among themselves, which is done mainly for personal “development” and hardly in the interest of the villagers. Such “merry-go-rounds” are not a recent phenomenon, but have been going on for over a decade, in many panchayats of Goa.
However, this is not a malaise limited to Goa only, but is also the experience of people of other states. Consequently, the Karnataka government is planning to amend the law, to ensure that panchayat members are not changed on “flimsy” grounds, and should concentrate more on the development of the village, rather than wasting time on electing Sarpanchas/Dy.Sarpanchas.(The Hindu, July 3, 2014).
The unfortunate part is that the Goa Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, does not have any provision, whereby such “merry-go-rounds” could be prevented. To overcome this lacuna, the Santa Cruz Education and Action Movement (SCREAM) recommends the following:
1. The Act should be suitably amended, so as to directly elect the Sarpanch and the Dy.Sarpanch for a fixed term, from any Ward of the Panchayat and from the Electoral Roll. This election should take place at a Special Gram Sabha called for this purpose, in the presence of the BDO. In this way, neither Panchas nor political parties, will have any say in the matter, as is the case presently.
2. The elected Sarpanch/Dy.Sarpanch should then be allowed an un-interrupted tenure of one year to clearly carry out a vision for the development of the village as prepared and proposed by him/her. Changes if approved by a Gram Sabha in its collective reasoning, should be incorporated in this development vision of the Sarpanch/Dy.Sarpanch, since we are talking of a participatory model of development. This makes the villagers also equally responsible for the development of the village. The elected representatives should then work towards this vision for the village during their tenure, along with the Panchas and villagers.
(The author is the Secretary, SCREAM, St. Cruz)
