MARGAO: Although they were supposed to be the last gram sabha meetings of the present panchayat bodies called primarily to approve the budget for the year 2017-18, villagers in at least four gram sabhas raised issues bothering them and affecting the villagers with one deciding to have a morcha on April 9.
The villagers of Guirdolim resolved to have a morcha on April 9 to press their demand for construction of either a rail over bridge or under pass at the existing level crossing near the Chandor Railway Station before the South Western Railways undertake their work of double tracking the railway line.
Taking cognizance of the reports in the media that the Railways have already tendered the work the villagers decided to address a memorandum to the South Western Railways manager which would be presented to him through the Station Master at Chandor Railway Station.
Incidentally, the villagers were informed that the Collector South had not yet replied to the panchayat’s letter asking for details of the proposed project despite the fact that the seven days given for the reply had already elapsed.
Guirdolim villagers also vehemently opposed the new alignment of the State Highway No 8 that passes through their village and insisted that the earlier alignment as notified in 1977 when the highway was to pass from San Jose de Areal to Chandor, be maintained.
It may be recalled that in view of the Supreme Court order banning alcohol outlets along the highways, the Public Works Department has realigned the State Highway No 8 because the earlier aligned route is not complete as the rail over bridge between Chandor and San Jose de Areal is not yet constructed.
The issue of the State Highway No 8 also echoed at the neighbouring Chandor-Cavorim where the villagers demanded a special gram sabha to discuss the issue. They were demanding that there should not be any State Highway passing through their village particularly as they were kept totally in the dark about this proposal when the Regional Plan was discussed in the village over five years back.
Chandor-Cavorim Sarpanch Lucia Coutinho e Cruz assured the villagers that the issue would first be discussed at the monthly panchayat meeting where the date for the special gram sabha would be discussed and accordingly intimated.
Meanwhile most of the panchayats approved the budgets for the financial year 2017-18. Curtorim approved a surplus budget of around Rs 12 lakhs with the receipts from the panchayat body being a whopping Rs 34.61 lakh.
Similarly Guirdolim also approved a surplus budget with the total receipts being Rs 61.69 lakh while the expenditure coming up to Rs 47.93 lakhs while Chandor approved a budget of Rs 73.91 lakh and Paroda approved a budget of Rs 1.34 crore.
At a totally lacklustre gram sabha villagers of Telaulim approved a deficit budget of around Rs 1.02 crore. Although various topics like house tax arrears, National Highway bypass were raised by the villagers, they were not taken to their conclusion and were just issues to be discussed.
Velim gram sabha however approved a deficit budge of Rs. 1.67 crore even though its receipts were pegged at Rs 1.18 crore
Although Camurlim gram sabha approved a budget Sarpanch Hilda Sequeira was not willing to disclose the figures on ground that they had to wait for eight days before the budget is finalized.
