Team Herald
MARGAO: The Sao Jose de Areal gram sabha adopted the Audit Report for 2017-18 after a lengthy 40 minute discussions where the wrong information provided by the panchayat to the auditors was highlighted even as Sarpanch Vincy Mascarenhas said the villagers views will be communicated to the audit team.
Freddy Travasso, a gram sabha member pointed out that the audit report states that the panchayat had constituted 8 committees while the panchayat in reality had constituted only one committee and asked the Sarpanch to name the 8 committees along with the names of the members appointed on them and the sarpanch said that would be announced at the next gram sabha.
It was disclosed that due to the panchayat elections and the resultant code of conduct, one regular gram sabha could not be held in the year for which the audit was done.
The approval of the minutes of the last gram sabha was done after a lengthy and tedious discussion for one hour during which time naming of the roads in the village was a major issue as the panchayat is still considering the matter for the last three months.
The villagers then suggested names for some of the roads. While it was resolved earlier to name one road after the first sarpanch of the village, other names suggested for roads were Holy Cross road and St. Joseph road.
The issue on naming roads was raised up because migrants have started giving their own names to age old localities due to which the place is losing its Goan identity and culture.
The sarpanch’s plea that the Garbage Management Committee needs to be reconstituted reiterated the earlier argument that the panchayat is not aware of the committees constituted by it and it was decided to constitute the committees at the next gram sabha. Other issues that were discussed quite vociferously was the illegal colony coming up in the village due to some person keeping migrants on rental basis in illegal rooms and Salvador Fernandes who raised this issue threatened to take the panchayat to court if no action is taken immediately.
“You have illegally given them 8 days time to remove the illegal constructions though the law does not allow you to do that,” he told the sarpanch while asking that immediate action be taken in the matter.
Pedru Fernandes also had a heated discussion over the pathway that is shown on the survey plan but has been blocked by somebody and alleged that the site inspection carried out was not done properly to which the Sarpanch suggested that he could challenge the site inspection report.
While Pedru was demanding that the site inspection report be placed before the gram sabha and also demanded to know from the Sarpanch what the situation at the site was, the sarpanch urged him to come to the panchayat to get his answers and not to raise personal matters at the gram sabha.
