Seventy-five per cent villagers in Nagargao Panchayat from Valpoi constituency don’t have ownership of the land where they have built their houses and are growing agricultural crops and living there for the past 50 years. Their houses and agricultural lands come under the wildlife and reserve forest area. For the past three decades, villagers are getting only promises of ownership from political leaders during elections which are forgotten once they get elected and not a single party is ready to solve their long pending issues, say villagers.
Besides this, some villages under the Panchayat like Dhave, Uste and Maloli are facing the water shortage problem for the past 15 years. The government has built water tanks in these villages 15 years ago investing almost Rs one crore, but all these water tanks are lying unused.
In the jurisdiction of this Panchayat, there are 16 villages Maloli, Nanoda, Uste, Dhave, Satode, Hedode, Ambede, Bombede, Nagargao, Brahmakarmali, Shelop Budruk, Shigne, Satre, Derode, Kodal and Waigini. The population of this panchayat is 4652 and it has 1006 houses.
“The last government had formed the Forest Right committee in every village. Through this committee, the Government was supposed to give us the ownership of our houses and land. The committee was working on the survey of houses and lands, which are coming under the wild life and reserve forest area, but suddenly in between, the government had stopped that survey, while saying that, there was a technical problem,” says Vamanrao Desai, ex Sarpanch of Nagargao Panchayat.
“In our Dhave village, we are facing the water shortage problem for the past 15 years. Long back, the PWD water supply Department Valpoi, had built a water tank in our village and had connected a pipeline from Dabose water treatment plant, but till today there is no water in the tank which is now in a dilapidated condition. For the past 15 years we are getting water for only two hours in a day. The Kadamba Buses are not coming on time in our villages, due to this our school children are reaching late to school,” says Bala Gaonkar, a villager.
The electric poles are too old and most of them are falling down during monsoons and we are facing power shortage problem.
So we are demanding that the Government install underground cables. Also there is no proper network and connectivity, says Vishwas Gaonkar, a youth from Mauloli village.
“We have already brought the water shortage issue to the notice of our Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, who has written to the PWD to solve the issue. A new water treatment plant is being built in Uste village. But till the plant is ready we are planning to join the pipeline from Nanoda water plant to get water. Since we are newly elected body, we have first to study the land ownership issue and later on discuss it with our MLA and reach a decision,” says Parag Khadilkar, Sarpanch of Nagargao Panchayat.
