Team Herald
MARGAO: The sparsely attended gram sabha at Curtorim on Sunday decided to undertake a survey of migrants living on rent in the village besides also noting down the various irregularities in the Regional Plan that is now notified.
Only three of the 11 panchayat members were present for the gram sabha which had the attendance of only 17 villagers. The gram sabha was scheduled to start at 9.30 am, but Deputy Sarpanch Albertina Menezes walked in only at 10.40 am and panchayat member Babi Zore came in at 10.45 am.
A lot of time was spent pointing out the exclusions in the minutes of the last gram sabha mostly relating to the irregularities in the Regional Plan that were discussed. The main grievance was that the suggestions and recommendations of the panchayat were ignored while things were marked without consulting the local body.
All internal roads were marked as 10 mts wide in the plan as against the panchayat recommendation of 6 mts width. Besides, a road was shown going to a plateau where there is not a single structure, which the villagers feared would be used for developing the plateau admeasuring around one lakh sq mts into a housing project.
Following the issue raised by Dhiraj Shet, it was decided to conduct a survey to identify the number of migrants living on rent in the village and also to check how they dispose off their garbage.
Dhiraj pointed out that the population of migrants is increasing by leaps and bounds; while earlier there were two or three living in one room, at present there are around 10 occupying the same quarters. He said that most of them have not filled the police verification forms and asked the panchayat to take action against the landlords keeping such people on rent.
Sarpanch Rui Menezes while pointing out that the application was too general disclosed that the panchayat body had decided to conduct a survey of migrants living in the village. Former panchayat member Charles Barretto suggested that their garbage management be also studied.
Former panchayat member Santana Rodrigues suggested that the government primary school be repaired and maintained under the 14th Finance Commission grants as the education department has already issued a NOC for the purpose and a panchayat library and the Biodiversity Committee have functioning from there.
However, Charles Barretto objected to using funds under the 14th Finance Commission on grounds that those funds are to be utilized only for the development of the village and not to maintain government property.
He also objected to Santan’s proposal to repair the bandhs and water channels by the lakes by pointing out that the tenants associations are given lot of funds by the government for maintenance of the lakes and those funds should be used for these works.
