Team Herald
Calangute: Heated discussions were witnessed at the Calangute gram sabha on Sunday between sarpanch Joseph Sequeira and some villagers over the failure to shut down the so-called dance bars and massage parlours besides other illegal activities.
Sequeira claimed the police were already rounding up touts and pimps here and added that he had recently met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to discuss the issue
following which police were deployed to round up touts and thirty of them were placed under arrest, a week ago.
Villagers, however, said the dance bars and massage parlours continue to operate despite promises made by the panchayat after gram sabha resolutions to shut them down. The sarpanch said the panchayat only gives licences for restaurants and they are carrying out a survey to determine which places are carrying out illegal activities.
When villagers raised the issue of casino advertisements boards on electricity poles still being there despite a gram sabha resolution to remove them, sarpanch Sequeira said they had written to the electricity department engineer concerned and have been informed that the panchayat does not have any say in the matter.
Villagers also demanded that the panchayat crackdown on illegal food carts like bhel puri vendors and ice cream carts.
Villagers also raised queries about the sewerage treatment plant (STP) at Baga and the alleged pollution of the river. Sarpanch Sequeira said panchayat members had recently visited the STP and directed the management to stop operations. “We’ve already written to the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) and all other authorities and also to the Calangute police station to register an FIR against the management and the executive engineer of JICA for starting operating the STP without permissions. We’re not against the STP but we want them to do it in a systematic, proper way,” he said.
