Team Herald
MARGAO: The Davorlim Dicarpale gram sabha besides deciding to invite both the MLAs representing the village to listen to the people’s grievances also exposed the arbitrary manner in which the panchayat issues construction licences and the sarpanch asked the aggrieved party to complain to the higher authorities.
Andrew Rebello from the village displaying survey plans and the construction plans claimed that a project in the recently elected Sarpanch Sahar Sarfaraz Shaikh’s ward was issued a construction licence based on an erroneous site inspection report.
“The project does not have a six mts wide access and it would result in demolishing the houses of scheduled tribe community,” he said demanding that the inspection report be tabled at the meeting.
Sarpanch Sahar said that people had encroached on the road and said the 6 mts wide access was seen during the inspection and asked Andrew to get whatever documents he wanted under Right to Information Act and complain to the higher authorities if he felt aggrieved.
“We have given the licence after the inspection and if you feel the panchayat has done something wrong then you can complain to the higher authorities,” she said. Andrew also pointed out that the open spaces are encroached upon by people and the parking lots are only on paper as vehicles are parked on the roadside causing problems to the people.
While asking the panchayat to check all files thoroughly before issuing any licence, Andrew also demanded that the developer be asked to gift the open space to the panchayat before the development work on the project starts.
The panchayat agreed to have a joint inspection with the Town and Country Planning Board of another project in the village where Andrew alleged that the conditions in the construction licence have been violated.
Earlier, the panchayat was pulled up for sitting quietly after only writing a letter to the Deputy Collector after the gram sabha held in mid-2018 and following much discussion it was decided to invite both the MLAs namely Luizinho Faleiro and Filipe Neri Rodrigues to discuss this issue and see how they could help develop the ground.
Around 15 minutes were wasted discussing an irrelevant issue of why the panchayat did not publicise the change in the sarpanch in the media. Deputy Sarpanch Deepak Mangalam explained that Bina Kulkarni had resigned as sarpanch and Sahar was elected to the post.
“The media comes rushing only if there is a no confidence motion moved. But in this case as it was a voluntary resignation the media did not cover it,” he explained which explanation was however not acceptable to the villager Albert who had raised the matter.
The panchayat agreed to the villagers’ demand to use panchayat funds and replace the sound system used for the gram sabha. She said at the next gram sabha there would be two microphones – one for those on the dais and the other for the public.
