Team Herald
MARGAO: The villagers of Verna heavily opposed the recent increase in garbage tax and asked that decision be reverted until the panchayat identifies how many migrants are living in the village and also has a break up of how many persons are living in each house.
At the stormy gram sabha meeting, the locals argued that the legal houses are being unfairly asked to bear the expenses of garbage management of the entire village when it is the huge migrant population staying in alleged illegal houses that are generating the garbage in the village.
While Deputy Sarpanch Marcos Faria explained to the villagers that the panchayat can carry out a reassessment drive to get the figures of how many persons are staying in each house, the villagers demanded that the panchayat first founds out how many migrants are staying in the village and the status of their place of residence, if it is legal or registered.
The locals also claimed that the size of the migrant and floating population is higher than that of the local residents who live in registered houses that pay house tax to the panchayat.
Questions were also raised about how the contractor will collect garbage from buildings.
Locals staying in single-dwellings also asked the panchayat why the cost of plastic bags in which they store their waste is not factored in.
Locals also brought to the attention of the panchayat how waste is dumped into fields and along the highway and action was also demanded against those persons dumping chicken waste in public.
Senior citizens also complained that there are few people living in their houses and yet they have to pay the same high garbage tax when the waste they generate is less as compared to houses with many persons living in it.
The panchayat was also asked to clean the drains and polluted water bodies in the village.
