PONDA: The Kundaim Village Panchayat gram sabha on Sunday turned stormy with heated discussions as the locals opposed to permissions provided by the Town and Country Planning Department and panchayat to Karnataka-based Chitrapur Muth.
Locals alleged that the Muth construction is illegal and permissions obtained are providing misinformation to various government agencies.
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Stating that the Muth coming up on the Comunidade land is illegal and of no use, the locals passed a resolution to revoke all permissions granted to the Muth and at the same time demanded Comunidade land to be preserved for future generations.
Locals grilled Panchas and Panchayat Secretary for issuing licence to the Muth. The Sarpanch and Secretary informed the gram sabha that the construction licence was given based on technical clearance from the TCP. However, the locals alleging several illegalities passed a resolution demanding to revoke all the permissions granted to the Karnataka Muth.
The Secretary assured the locals that he would check all documents. In case of any illegalities, he would definitely take legal action into the matter.
Locals said, “The permissions granted are for farmhouse while the Chitrapur Muth started residential construction and that around 28 pillars constructed is proof of it.”
They demanded to demolish the illegal structures, compound wall, and also to seal the illegal bore wells which pump huge quantity of water causing shortages to bagayats of people residing below the plateau.
Locals also demanded to remove the transformer constructed on the plateau for Muth stating it creates power failures in the village.
Ritesh Narvekar, Vijesh Naik and other locals grilled the panchayat body and Secretary over the issue.
They demanded Comunidade land be protected for future generations. Locals questioned the need of providing 36,000 square metres of Comunidade land to the Muth that is of no use to the locals.
Stating that already there is shortage of land for the locals and that the Comunidade land should be protected for the benefit of future generations, locals pointed out that they had prepared a scheme and made applications to the Comunidade and Panchayat to provide 450 plots, with per plot of 350 square metres for house construction to locals. However, the panchayat failed to do follow up on the matter.
Panch Ramu Naik chaired the meeting in absence of sarpanch, who assured to locals to look into the matter. Earlier, there was chaos in the gram sbaha as one of the members gave a bad word to another local while he was making his point.
The two local groups clashed with each other, following which gram sabha was halted after tense situation. However, large number of police presence to maintain law and order situation, interfered and controlled the crowd. Finally, police took out the person who had given bad word, following which peace was prevailed and gram sabha was resumed.
