Team Herald
MARGAO: With the panchayat elections approaching, sitting panch members and those people interested in putting their hat in the ring are waiting with dread to see the outcome of the recently concluded panchayat delimitation process.
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A senior official from the State Election Commission (SEC) told Herald that they have completed the delimitation process but that they are waiting for the State government to respond to what they have sent them.
“The village panchayat delimitation proposals have been submitted to the Directorate of Panchayats (DoP) for government consultation,” the official added.
He explained that the DoP is examining the proposals and will send its comments on the file based on which further action will be taken with regard to the delimitation exercise.
He added that once the delimitation proposals are approved, they will issue a notification to mark the new boundaries of the wards in the village panchayats. “This should be done by the end of April,” he added.
Thereafter, the SEC will begin the reservation process of these wards ahead of the elections.
When asked if any date has been set for the elections, the official said that they are not at that stage yet as the various processes need to be completed first.
It may be recalled that recently the Panchayat Minister had stated that the elections should be held in the first week of June.
However, various panchas from Salcete are not entirely happy with how the delimitation process was carried out. There are many who felt that too little time was given and that the delimitation exercise has disrupted geographical boundaries and will create non-uniform ward size in a panchayat. In some cases, family members living in one house were put in two different wards.
“I am not happy with delimitation as it should have been done with proper geographical ward boundaries and adequate numbers of voters in each ward. There should be no duplication of votes and repeat of house numbers in more than one ward. The government should have given enough time for the delimitation process and also should have involved their counterparts at village level for clear and fair delimitation,” said Joseph Vaz, general secretary of the Goa Panchayat Democratic Forum.
Vaz, who is also a panch of Rachol added, “I believe that the government is in a hurry and has no care for grassroots administration, which speaks volume about its desire to give more power to panchayats. The government must take a bigger initiative to make panchayats people friendly.”
Telaulim sarpanch Steven Goes felt his biggest complaint was that the draft delimitation plan did not have the geographical continuity between wards that is the base of any exercise to carve out boundaries between wards of a village panchayat.
“They seem to have done it by sitting in an office instead of using a map and going village to village. There are no uniform size of wards also as now we could have one small ward and another big ward as opposed to equal-sized wards,” he added.
Dominic Noronha, Dramapur-Sirlim Biodiversity Management Committee Chairman and former panch also agreed that the authorities made a mistake by not providing maps, which were essential to help the villagers understand how their wards were being broken up.
He pointed out that the SEC did extend the time to allow them to submit their objections and suggestions but reiterated that without the maps, the villagers were handicapped in their ability to thoroughly go through the draft delimitation and give their suggestions/objections.
Celine Furtado, Chandor-Cavorlim panch said the concerned villagers had asked the authorities to stick to the original ward plans given the issues with the draft delimitation. She added that they are waiting to see the final break of words before commenting any further.
“The utter disregard and contempt for our Panchayat bodies is apparent from the callous, thoughtless, and directionless manner in which the recent ward delimitation exercise has been carried out. But then what can one expect from an administration that has consistently demonstrated its lack of respect for the concept of local self government by keeping Goa as the only State that has failed to implement the 73rd and 74th amendment?”, said Swapnesh Sherlekar, president of Goencho Swabhiman Party (GSP).
GSP along with the group Zagrutt Xaxticar have been holding awareness meetings across Goa to highlight the importance of the Panchayati Raj Act and the role of the panchayats, ahead of the elections.
Reportedly, the SEC had received 913 objections and suggestions from North Goa and South Goa.
