MARGAO: In an interesting development, the Raia gram sabha on Sunday passed a resolution asking that a separate village planning department be formed and that permissions for construction licenses etc be granted by this new department and not the Town and Country Planning Department (TCP) as is the norm at present.
At the gram sabha meeting, the locals expressed frustration with the manner in which the TCP approves construction activity in the villages without knowing the ground reality, in terms of how it can affect the surrounding areas and also without taking the local village panchayats into confidence as well.
Thus, this demand for a new government department was made.
Another resolution was passed wherein the panchayat was asked to write to the local MLA pinpointing how the residents are being harassed by traffic police who were issuing them with challans even on local internal roads including the one near the police station. The locals felt that this was not feasible for them.
A third resolution was for changing the type of speed breakers on the highway portion from Arlem to the Uzro highway, from rumblers to hump type speed breakers.
The issue of road accidents on the highway has been a recurring issue in the village.
The meeting was chaired by Sarpanch Peter Quadros.
