MARGAO: The Paroda gram sabha witnessed pandemonium over the illegal land conversion undertaken by some people at Mullem which has been in the news recently with Cuncolim MLA Clafasio Dias accusing some villagers of unnecessarily raking up the issue.
Former sarpanch Gabriel Fernandes who raised the matter said the panchayat should have taken the villagers into confidence while preparing the Regional Plan and clearly marked the areas that would be settlement and which areas would be orchard land or fields.
He pointed out that some people were illegally converting their fields into settlement areas by filling up the land and planning to construct houses on that land. He said while there was no objection to anybody constructing a house for his personal residence, they had objections to houses or plots being sold to others as it amounted to commercial activity.
MLA Clafasio Dias who is also a gram sabha member accused the former sarpanch of objecting to some villagers constructing their own houses and thus creating a divide in the village. He said he had collected around 1,200 signatures of the villagers supporting the development of plots in Mullem.
He said that the memorandum signed by the villagers would be presented to the government and sought to get the gram sabha to resolve in favour of the development, which however was not permitted by the Sarpanch Inacio Tereza.
The gram sabha also resolved to get the accounts of the panchayat investigated by the Vigilance Department as it was alleged that there was large scale misappropriation of funds.
