Team Herald
MARGAO: Ten of the 11 panchayat members were present for the Sao Jose de Areal Gram Sabha held today with Andrea Faleiro being the only absentee. Incidentally, Andrea was a panchayat member during the last term too and was re-elected this time.
The gram sabha that commenced at 10.45 am ended only at 2.45 pm and had some heated exchanges between the Sarpanch Perris D’Costa and one villager where even unparliamentarily words were used.
Six of the panchayat members are first timers; Srpanch Perris D’Costa, Andrea Faleiro and Minguel Gomes were members during the last term, while Vincy Mascarenhas and Alcantra Mascarenhas were elected to the panchayat in 2009.
The sarpanch was forced to admit that the new panchayat members were not informed about the discussions at the last gram sabha. Similarly, the villagers insisted that fresh notice be served on the person undertaking illegal construction as the peon who has since expired, misplaced the earlier notice issued to him.
Officials of the electricity department, public works department and town and country planning department do not listen to the panchayat members and that is hampering the work, disclosed the sarpanch as and when people raised up various issues.
He also informed those gathered that there were mistakes committed by the officials concerned in various plans specially the ones regarding the construction of the play ground.
Incidentally, while initially the ground was estimated to cost around Rs 4 crore, it is now valued at Rs 50 lakh compelling a villager to demand a complete ground and not a haphazard one.
There were quite a few personal clashes too with one villager alleging that somebody was donated a four wheeler by Goa Carbon Limited and another was accused of remaining silent when illegal partition of property was done in his ward.
Members of the various committees complained that they were intimated about the committee meetings at the eleventh hour and demanded that in future at least a week’s notice be given.
The three standing committees were constituted with three members each excluding the chairmen. All the members of the standing committee along with the panchayat members would constitute the Village Development Committee.
