TEAM HERALD
OLD GOA: The Curca gram sabha on Sunday witnessed uproarious scenes with villagers alleging that the panchayat authorities have granted licence to a project in Bambolim, which they claim has come up on comunidade land, in lieu of money.
However, the acting Sarpanch Diona Korgaonkar took strong objections to the allegations which she said were totally false and baseless.
Husband of Diona, Dr Sanjay Korgaonkar, who was particularly targeted by the villagers, also threatened to take the issue to the court by filing defamation cases against those members of the gram sabha who he said made these ‘wild’ allegations.
Speaking on the issue, villager Marvin Gonsalves raised suspicion of the panchayat’s dubious role in issuing licence to the project in Bambolim, which he claimed has come up on comunidade land.
“The panchayat authorities did not bother to check the title documents of the land before granting licence to the project,” Gonsalves said while opining that the NOC was granted for monetary gains. Other villagers also joined Gonsalves in support by alleging that huge amount of money changed hands as part of the deal.
Speaking to Herald, acting Sarpanch Diona however said the panchayat approved the project after ensuring that all the documents were in order. “The party submitted Form I & XIV along with the sale deed, based on which the approval was granted,” she added while informing that all the allegations of money being paid to the panchayat authorities are totally false and baseless.
The issue of continuous interference of Dr Sanjay Korgaonkar to the queries of the villagers also raised much heat at the gram sabha with villagers alleging that he was trying to dominate just because his wife is the acting sarpanch.
However, Dr Korgaonkar countered by stating that he has every right to react to the issues discussed at the gram sabha, which were in fact raised by him at the last gram sabha.
“Since the villagers were discussing on resolutions passed by me during the last gram sabha, I was only clarifying the same,” Dr Korgaonkar later told Herald while stating that he had no intention of interfering in the functioning of the gram sabha.
