MARGAO: The Davorlim Dicarpale gram sabha was adjourned abruptly amidst chaotic scenes as the villagers hauled up the panchayat for its failure to deal with the garbage menace in the village and still giving permissions for mega projects.
Trouble broke out as villagers pointed out that the panchayat had given construction licence for a mega housing project even though there was no access as mandated for the project. The issue snowballed into a major controversy with villagers coming to the dais and shouting down the panchayat members.
Deputy Sarpanch Deepak Mangalam, who was presiding over the gram sabha as Sarpanch Bina Kulkarni is on leave, suddenly adjourned the gram sabha after stating that he would seek the Town and Country Planning Department’s advice on the matter.
The villagers referring to documents submitted by the builder to the panchayat pointed out that while the builder claimed to have six metre wide access, the actual access available was not even three metres.
Andrew Rebello, a villager, argued that the panchayat should check things at loco and not give licences blindly because the TCP has given permission and further said that TCP officials even had told him that the panchayat was empowered to question the TCP permission.
The villagers also lamented that the panchayat had not set in place any mechanism to check whether constructions are undertaken as per the licence issued and pointed out that at many places basement parking areas have been converted into shops or flats.
The demand was that if constructions are done violating the conditions of the licences, then, the same should be revoked and the party be penalized.
As the panchayat requested the villagers to bring such illegalities to its notice so that it could take action against them, there was chaos and confusion as villagers demanded to know why the panchayat members cannot take up the task in their respective wards. However, as the din refused to die down, the gram sabha was adjourned.
Earlier, following noisy scenes the panchayat agreed to issue notices to all people carrying out business particularly of furniture at Dicarpale close to the road and also to get all encroachments on the road removed and said they would take this on case by case basis.
Ironically, the panchayat agreed that most of the businesses were being carried out illegally without any permission or trade license issued by the panchayat and said it would crack down on all such operators and appealed to the people for their support.
The panchayat also disclosed that they are conducting a survey to fix sopo in the village and assured the villagers that locals who just sit to sell their farm produce would not be taxed but sopo would be made applicable to those who erect some kind of structure.
Earlier, the gram sabha approved the revised budget of Rs 24 lakh of which Rs 10 lakh was for machine to convert wet waste into compost, and Rs 60,000 each for a baling machine, for a scooter for the gram sewak and for a sound system for the panchayat.
