CORTALIM: The Sancoale gram sabha on Sunday came down heavily on panchas for failing to attend the meeting and accused them of having no interest in the welfare of the villagers and the village.
While Sarpanch Ramakant Borkar apparently could not attend the meeting on account of him being debarred from entering the village as per the court order in the bribery case, all other panchas except for Anita Mudaliar abstained from the meeting.
Incidentally, the villagers chose former presiding officer of the Goa Assembly and deputy speaker Simon D’Souza to preside over the meeting which transacted a whole lot of issues put forth by the villagers.
A resident, Narayan D Naik, brought to the notice of the villagers, the alleged duplicity of the panchayat in levying of taxes on the corporate house vis-à-vis the residents. He gave an instance where house taxes for corporate houses were levied on lump sum basis without ascertaining the plinth area while the ordinary residents are made to pay on basis of the plinth area. He also disclosed that this practice was going on for years together, thereby denying the panchayat its rightful revenue as per the Panchayati Raj Act.
Naik also gave an instance where trade tax was levied on corporate house amounting to a paltry sum of Rs 1,250 per year. Panchayat Secretary Sandhya Shirodkar when questioned said it was the decision of the panchayat to levy the said amount.
Sancoale houses major corporate houses like Zuari Agro Chemicals Ltd, Reliance-Sancoale Power Plant, Meta Strips, etc. There are also major ship building docks in the village which have also been accused of paying low taxes to the panchayat. Later, the gram sabha decided to go in for fresh assessment of taxes.
The gram sabha also appointed a Bio-Diversity Management committee. Former sarpanch Premanand Naik threatened to launch protest if the gram sabha decisions were not implemented before the next gram sabha. The gram sabha also decided to rename Zuari Nagar as Alto-Sancoale. Other issues such as desilting of nullahs, hot mixing of roads were also discussed at the meeting.
