Corlim panchayat has to rely on the inauguration stone affixed on a building to determine its age. Information under RTI Act has revealed that the panchayat does not have documents pertaining to its own panchayat building and a multipurpose community hall
Panchayats are expected to be custodians of documents pertaining to their respective villages, but some of them may find it difficult to trace documents of their own properties.
In one such case, the Corlim panchayat has found itself in an awkward situation and has had to rely on the inauguration stone affixed on a building to determine its age. Believe it or not, information under Right to Information Act has revealed that the Corlim panchayat does not have documents pertaining to its own panchayat building and a multipurpose community hall.
This surprising finding came to light with Corlim Citizens Civic and Consumers Forum (CCCCF) Secretary Baptist Pereira sought for property-related details regarding the panchayat building and a multipurpose community hall under the RTI Act.
“In his reply to our queries, the Corlim panchayat secretary admitted that no records pertaining to the two projects are available in the records of the village panchayat. The secretary surprisingly states that as per the inauguration stone on the Multipurpose Community Hall of this Village Panchayat, the date of inauguration is mentioned as January 4, 2006,” said Pereira.
“We now have to assume that the Corlim Panchayat relies more on granite stones rather than on documents.”
“Recently, the panchayat minister had stated that 95% of houses in villages are illegal and it won’t be out of place to say that an equivalent number of panchayat buildings in the State could also be illegal. Therefore, a survey needs to be conducted of all panchayat buildings in Goa,” Pereira added.
When asked to comment on the panchayat’s failure to maintain documents pertaining to its own property, Panchayat Secretary Oswin Mascarenhas said: “You see work on the panchayat building was taken by under the RDA, while work on the Panchayat hall was taken as part of the MPLAD scheme. Tenders must have been floated by them as funds were not spent by the panchayat. Hence, property documents would be with them and since I have recently taken over as panchayat secretary, I do not have any documents with me.”
Asked if the panchayat had initiated steps to retrieve copies of the documents, Mascarenhas said the panchayat is in the process of taking technical sanction to demolish the old building.
“During that process, we are trying to find out the old records with various departments like the RDA and at the collectorate as well,” added Mascarenhas.
Responding to a query on whether the panchayat had filed any complaint regarding the missing documents, the panchayat secretary replied: “Someone has to first prove that we had the documents in the first place. If not, how can I say that the documents are missing? It could well be that the documents are not there with the panchayat.”
But if the Corlim panchayat has been lax about maintaining documents pertaining to its own property, how are residents expected to repose their faith in the panchayat as the custodian of other documents? Besides, those involved in illegal structures could well claim that they too don’t have documents to the property/structure and could argue that if the panchayat house can exist without documents, so could their illegal structures.
When contacted, Sarpanch Supriya Kerkar admitted that they had not made efforts to trace the property documents, but would do so in future.
“This old panchayat was built way back in 1973 and land for the building was given by the Corlim comunidade as goodwill. We do not have documents for the panchayat office, but we will try and trace them in future,” said Kerkar.
