The Sao Jose de Areal village panchayat, is one of the few panchayats whose financial position is quite sound. It has witnessed three sarpanchas and three deputy sarpanchas in the last five years and at present the Deputy Sarpanch is holding the fort.
In the 2012 elections, the following 11 panchas were elected. They are Minguel Gomes, Perris D’Costa, Jose Mario Gomendes, Berta Viegas, Agnelo Mora, Fatima Dias, Julio Monteiro, Milagrina Cardoso, Gabriel Oliveira, Nazario Noronha and Andrea Faleiro.
Apparently, there was an agreement amongst the elected members that the Sarpanch’s post would be shared among them for certain period of time and accordingly Julio Monteiro was elected as the Sarpanch for two years and Minguel Gomes was elected as the Deputy Sarpanch.
However, as Julio did not step down after the stipulated two years, a no confidence motion was passed against him and Gabriel Oliveira was elected the Sarpanch on September 14, 2015. Following Gabriel’s resignation in June 2015, Minguel Gomes was elected Sarpanch and he too resigned in February, 2016.
After Minguel, Gabriel Oliveira became the deputy chairman till he was elected as the Sarpanch. Perris D’Costa was elected the deputy sarpanch on November 11, 2015 and at present he is the acting sarpanch.
“The financial position of the panchayat is quite good,” say Auditors in the panchayat’s Audit report for 2015-2016. The panchayat had around Rs 34.85 lakh funds in its kitty for the year as per the audit and receives around Rs 9,00,000 annually from the government in lieu of the Margao Industrial Estate in its jurisdiction.
However, there is tremendous scope for improving the financial position of the panchayat as its tax collection is found wanting. While the panchayat collected around Rs 6.82 lakh by way of house tax but it is yet to recover Rs 16.89 lakh. Over Rs 2 lakh is yet to be collected by way of trade tax even though it has collected only Rs 89,000.
Since the Health Services is occupying the panchayat premises to house its Sub-Health Centre, the panchayat is not receiving any payment for the same.
The panchayat has three standing committees — production committee, social justice committee and amenities committee. However, not a single meeting of these committees has been held in the last five years. Significantly, the sarpanch is the chairperson of the production and amenities committee while the Deputy Sarpanch is the chairperson of the social justice committee as per the Goa Panchayati Raj Act.
The other committees are – ward development, garbage management, water and sanitation, village development, health and sanitation, village children and monitoring committees. All these committees have not held any meetings except for the ward development committee which earlier used to meet every month.
The panchayat is regular in holding the four annual gram sabhas and the four special gram sabhas however the attendance is a cause of concern and the quorum is never formed.
Earlier, the panchayat was battling with the illegal scrap yards in its jurisdiction, presently it is beleaguered by pollution from the industrial units in the industrial estate. Incidentally while the panchayat demolished two scrap yards, seven were removed by the owners and 10 have succeeded in getting a stay order from the courts.
