MARGAO: The Davorlim Dicarpale gram sabha on Sunday discussed a deficit budget at a meeting chaired by Deputy Sarpanch Deepak Mangalam as the Sarpanch Siya Varak is on leave and the gram sabha did not follow the standard procedure at quite a few places.
In the first place, though it was a regular gram sabha, the minutes of the previous gram sabha held on January 19 were not read out. At the end of the discussion on the budget, the meeting was adjourned without getting anybody to propose or second the acceptance of the budget.
Deepak Mangalam disclosed that the budget approval was proposed by Sylvester Niasso and seconded by former sarpanch Manuel Miranda. However, Miranda stoutly denied having seconded the motion to approve the budget thus indicating that the panchayat arbitrarily was recording names of people as proposer and seconder to the motion.
The garbage menace in the village was discussed at length with some suggesting that the housing societies be asked to use the reserved open spaces in their complex to manage their garbage.
However, Deepak Mangalam quoting Minister Nilesh Cabral said, “Till the garbage management plants are commissioned at Verna and Cacora, the village will have to continue bearing the garbage menace as there is no other solution to the problem.”
The gram sabha resolved that in future photocopies of the budget would be provided to the villagers to enable them to participate in the discussion properly and the meeting was delayed for some time to make copies of the budget as demanded by the people.
The total income for the year 2020-21 was projected to be Rs 1.56 crore as against the total expenditure of Rs 1.61 crore; thus, having a deficit of Rs 5.05 lakh which is covered by the opening balance of Rs 81.49 lakh which is available due to unutilized funds by the panchayat over the years.
The panchayat is expecting Rs 35 lakh from the government as grants to set up the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) for garbage management. The panchayat expects Rs 12 lakh by way of house tax as this year they collected Rs 10.55 lakh and though it collected Rs 2.27 lakh as construction licence fee, it has projected receipt of Rs 5 lakh for the next financial year under this head.
The major expenditure of the panchayat is projected to be Rs 33 lakh for the MRF, while Rs 11 lakh is projected to be the expenditure for garbage management including collecting from households and cleaning the black spots.
Deepak said that the panchayat has not received any direction from the Health Services when a villager asked what provision has been made to tackle the Coronavirus infection. The villagers while questioning the existence of the cattle pound demanded that one be set up at Dicarpale, too.
“The person is only collecting money from the panchayat, but till date has not caught a single bovine,” said Manuel Miranda. And other villagers demanded that the panchayat at least identify the place to establish a cattle pound.
