Team Herald
SALIGAO: The issue of mushrooming illegal structures on comunidade land dominated the Saligao gram sabha on Sunday. Other issues such as the growing number of scrap yards in the village, stray dog and cattle menace, broken bridge near Saligao church, funds for garbage collection and leachate spillage were also discussed at the meeting.
The Saligao Comunidade attorney Austin Da Gama questioned the Sarpanch Lafira Remedious e Gomes as to whether the panchayat was aware of the number of illegal structures on prime agricultural land belonging to the comunidade.
“The comunidade has not given any NOC. I will see to that these illegal structures, which have come up on comunidade land, are demolished and no illegal constructions will come up on this land,” Austin informed.
The Sarpanch said she was aware of this irregularity in the village.
Another villager asked the Sarpanch to give an estimated figure of the number of houses in Saligao and how many were paying their house tax.
Lafira said, “Around 3,000 households are there maybe. We have asked the ward members to provide us with a list of the number of houses without a house number and the ones not paying house tax. I will be able to give you the exact number at the next gram sabha”.
Another villager questioned the Sarpanch over the issue of garbage collection. Lafira said that the panchayat does not have sufficient funds for garbage collection and gets funds amounting to only Rs 1 lakh for a year.
The demanded that the money collected in the form of taxes be used properly for garbage collection. They alleged that in the village around 3,147 rooms were given on rent and no tax was being collected.
Another local raised the issue of trucks from different villages entering the Saligao were causing nuisance in the village due to spillage of leachate, which resulted in a number of accidents.
The villagers demanded that the scrap yards be moved out of the village. The Sarpanch assured the locals that action will be taken against the illegal scrap yards in the village.
The Sarpanch assured to tackle the menace of stray cattle and dogs on priority.
There was a discussion on the broken foot bridge near the Saligao Church cemetery and Hindu crematorium.
The sarpanch assured end to carry out work of the said bridge after monsoons.
