MARGAO: The Davorlim Dicarpale gram sabha amidst some tense moments and gross indiscipline resolved to have joint inspections of two construction sites with the Water Resources Department and the Town and Country Planning Department.
Soon after the minutes were read when the gram sabha was discussing about the joint inspection of the access road shown for a construction site at Indona, Sarfaraj the husband of Sarpanch Sahar Shaikh charged aggressively to a villager who was questioning the desk.
As he kept thrusting his chest towards the villagers and tension gripped the hall, some other villagers intervened and separated the two and the meeting proceeded smoothly after that.
Some villagers including former Sarpanch Manuel Miranda refused to stick to the agenda and would arbitrarily speak on the topic they were interested in and the chair failed to rein them in and later admitted that she was lenient with Manuel because he was a former sarpanch.
Following a lengthy and heated discussion, it was decided to have a joint inspection with the TCP to ascertain the width of the road shown as access to the project in Indona which as per the plan was shown as 6 mts but in reality was less than that.
The Sarpanch pointed out that because they felt that there was a discrepancy they had asked the TCP to inspect is as the Panchayat having no engineer is not empowered to check the width of the road.
“The TCP had given us a date but that was on a Monday when the panchayat is closed and hence we have now asked them to give another date as soon as possible,” she said adding that the villagers would be informed about the inspection.
The illegal constructions coming up at Bobteavado or Pequeno Davorlim was also discussed heatedly with the panchayat pointing out that most of the constructions are not given any permission or license by the panchayat.
The panchayat admitted having issued construction license to projects after they had obtained technical clearance from the TCP and pointed out that they can act only on the two projects that they have licensed.
However, the sarpanch pointed out that they have asked the people carrying on the illegal construction to stop their work immediately and further pointed out that no work is being undertaken by them.
As Andrew Rebello and other villagers kept pointing out that there was encroachment on the water body including river Sal, it was decided to call the Water Resources Department to see about the encroachment and also enlighten what should be set back for any development from the banks of river as the panchayat admitted not having any knowledge about it.
The panchayat said they had given construction licence asking for a setback of 3 mts to be kept in keeping as per rules however it claimed to have no knowledge about the set back to kept for development next to water bodies.
