VASCO: The gram sabha members of Cansaulim-Arrossim-Cuelim (CAC) panchayat unanimously resolved to oppose the doubling of railway track by South Western Railways passing through its jurisdiction.
The gram sabha said that with two lines at the Cansaulim Railway Station, the villagers are facing trouble and having additional railway lines would be double trouble.
A host of other crucial issues were debated during the gram sabha that witnessed noisy scenes and chaos, on Sunday. The meeting was chaired by Sarpanch Philomena D’Mello. Four panchas remained absent at the meeting, they are: Martha Saldanha, Baylon Gomes, Jose Marie Furtado and Ratnadeep Naik.
Questions were raised on the proposal of the doubling of South Western railway tracks by Dr Marconi Correia and it was unanimously resolved to object the plan even though MLAs Mauvin Godinho and Nilesh Cabral have given their green signal.
Villagers claimed that the railway authorities are trying to get piecemeal approvals. The gram sabha also highlighted how the tracks are causing hardships which would double with the doubling of railway tracks.
The gram sabha also grilled panchayat secretary as well as the sarpanch on the approval of the financial budget passed by Zilla Panchayat.
Alvaro Costa questioned the secretary and the sarpanch, why the secretary made an unprecedented move of getting the budget passed though ZP without the gram sabha passing the same.
To this, the secretary showed the minutes of meeting where the budget was passed by the panchas. However, opposition panchas John Fernandez and Luis D’Costa refuted his claims saying that the minutes book has been manipulated and the figures were not recorded in the minutes and the columns for figures has been left blank. They reiterated that they never took part in such a discussion. It was later decided to fix the budget discussion for the next gram sabha meeting.
