MARGAO: The so called ‘live interaction’ with village panchayats turned out to be a token exercise, since no villagers participated in the interaction and only panchayat members were seen listening to the speeches. Moreover there was no interaction at all. Minister for Agriculture Ravi Naik, Director of Handicrafts, Textiles and Coir Arvind Bugde, Director of Goa Handicrafts Corporation Melwyn Vaz, Agriculture Director Neville Alphonso and Director of Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Jayant Tari spoke at the interaction.
The BDOs had informed the panchayats that there would be a ‘live interaction’ with regards to three departments and asked them to gather people to participate in it.
However, there was no interaction at all as the one-and-a-half hour long programme comprised only of speeches by the minister and officials.
To start off, Ravi Naik spoke about the purpose of the programme, followed by other directors. Director of Goa Handicrafts Corporation, Melwyn Vaz in his brief 3 minute address, announced the setting up of a ‘Kunbi Village Cluster’at Uguem in Sanguem taluka.
There was no opportunity given to any of the panchayat members (who had joined the online ‘interaction’) to participate since there was no opportunity for by asking any question or clarification and the entire exercise ended up in a classroom style talks.
At the Chandor-Cavorim Panchayat the Sarpanch, Deputy Sarpanch and one panchayat member along with two villagers including the VDC convener were present along with the Secretary, Talathi, clerk and peon and of course the newly appointed Swayampurna Mitra Dr Hrishikesh Pawar.
At neighbouring Guirdolim while no villager was present, six of the seven panchayat attended it while panch Flavia Fijardo was not present because she is out of station, disclosed Sarpanch Sonia Fernandes.
In Sanguem, it appeared that panchayat members from the Opposition were not even informed about the programme and hence were absent.
Rakhi Naik, pancha from Netravali complained that neither the panchayat secretary nor the Swayampurna Mitra informed her about the programme.
“My enquiries reveal that the programme was not attended by all the panchayat members,” she said
At Uguem village where the Kunbi Village Cluster is proposed, some of the panchayat members opted to watch it from the comfort of their houses instead of coming to the panchayat.
At Bhati and Kalay there was no official programme at the panchayat to participate in the session.
At Kalay more importance was given to the Bhagwan Bursa Munda Rally headed by local MLA Subhash Phaldessai.
One pancha of Bhati village said he was not even aware of the programme as nobody bothered to inform him about it.
Incidentally, the sarpanch of Bhati Village Panchayat is out of station and as such was not available for the programme in the village.
At Kurdi Waddem nobody could watch the programme as there was no Internet connectivity till the afternoon.
Josephine Fernandes from this village said that most of the panchayat members were present at the panchayat office but had to leave disappointed as they could not get net connection till noon.
