It was on during the Sunday Gramsabha at Bandora Panchayat that the plight of the Shapur local came to light. The locals claim their houses are several decades old and despite their effort since 1985 to register their houses with the Bandora Panchayat, their efforts have not been successful due to lapses on the part of authorities during delimitation. They now struggle to get basic facilities due to not having registered their houses.
Prior to 1985 Shapur area was part of Ponda Constituency and their houses were registered in Ponda Municipal Council (PMC) and they were voters in Ponda Muncipalty. According to Mulla Murtuza a local of Shapur who said “Due to the delimitation in 1985 of the assembly constituency, Shapur which was part of Ponda Municipality was transferred to Bandora Panchayat in Marcaim Constituency. The Ponda Muncipalty send the correspondence and documents with regards the transfer of house registration of Shapur locality to Bandora Panchayat. Since then we also become voters of Bandora Panchayat. However and casting the Bandora Panchayat office have no records of our house registration and they refuse to do so subjecting us to hardship in getting water and electricity connections”.
Mulla Murtuza said most of the land belonged to the families and there around fifty voters and around hundred family members including children.
He blamed Bandora Panchayat for not registering their houses and said it was difficult to repair the houses. Over a period of time the number of family members had increased and they were facing problems getting separate house numbers and also building extensions to their houses. He said that even though Bandora Panchayat clamed they were not in possession of municipal documents, they had all the house tax receipt copies from Ponda Muncipal Council which is sufficient to record their house. Some locals even showed the house tax receipt issued by PMC prior to 1985 to prove that their houses were registered with the municipality.
The locals complained the PMC did not have a proper record of the transfer of houses nor the panchayat of any document record received from the municipality. Panch member of Bandora Panchayat Rajesh Naik said that he went personally to the Ponda Muncipal Coucil and inquired with staff in the Municipality but was unable to transfer the records to Bandora Panchayat.
Responding to their complaints, Sarpanch of Bandora Panchayat Ramchandra Naik agreed that they were all voters of Bandora. He said “ I could not help them register their houses without proper document to show that their houses were registered in Ponda Municipal Council and that the panchayat office had no records to show any record or correspondence in regard to their transfer of houses from Ponda Municipality. I intend to write to the Director of Panchayat in regard to registration of their houses in Bandora Panchayat to help the locals of Shapur”.
Surel Tilve a local of Bandora said “The Panchayat should conduct an inquiry and record the legal houses in Shapur with Bandora Panchayat in order to earn revenue in the form of house taxes. Over the past many years it appears that Bandora Panchayat missed its revenue due to non registration of legal houses”.
