MARGAO: The village panchayat of Camorlim in Salcete is victim to a strange quandary related to its name, which has resulted in confusion and inconvenience to the locals and the panchayat. It has been observed that on several occasions, important official correspondence is delivered to the office of the village panchayat Camurlim in Bardez taluka, instead of the Camorlim panchayat in Salcete. While even the pronunciation of both village names is very close, the tiny difference between ‘O' and 'U' has continued to create problems for the village panchayat as the government departments concerned have failed to pay heed to the villagers’ repeated requests to correct the name of the village in official documents.
Camorlim village is located in Salcete taluka of South Goa district. It is situated 12km away from Margao, which is both the district & sub-district headquarters of Camorlim village. This village is the only panchayat in the State of Goa that has succeeded in running a solar power project.
At present, several government records spell the village’s name incorrectly as ‘Camurlim’, and the concerned department has not agreed to rectify it, resulting in confusion for the village panchayat of Camorlim. “We have been after the government to rectify the name of the panchayat in their records, but all efforts have gone in vain. Our panchayat had sent official correspondence on several occasions in order to make corrections in the name of the panchayat but we have not even received a single reply,” said Basilio Fernandes, Sarpanch of Camorlim in Salcete.
“In order to avoid confusion, we are forced to specify the taluka name ‘Salcete’ in all our official correspondence,” he added.
“Many times, letters and important notices and documents addressed to our panchayat by the government are handed over to the panchayat office in Bardez, and as a result everything goes for a toss. These documents are rarely redirected to us,” he complained.
He urged the government to make the necessary corrections in their records so that future confusion can be avoided.