TEAM HERALD
CORTALIM: In a rare display of unity and consensus, the Sancoale gram sabha on Sunday decided on various issues right from tackling the nuisance caused by high rise buildings to collection of revenue from corporate houses.
The villagers took serious note of sewage being discharged from a building at Zuari Nagar and plastic waste strewn around the vicinity and demanded that the panchayat act to stop the nuisance and put an end to it before an epidemic breaks out.
Resident Narayan D Naik pointed that many high rise building did not have a sewage treatment plant and blamed the panchayat for having issued occupancy certificates before completion of all the requirements/infrastructure in the building.
“The builders take occupancy certificate first and thereafter they don’t bother to install these facilities,” Naik said and added that a high rise building had come up even without the mutation being made in the builder’s name. Another villager was critical of the waste being dumped in the water way at Sancoale.
Adv Tome Carvalho however reminded that the panchayat was a licensing authority and they could not just keep a file pending if the applicant had fulfilled all the requirements as mentioned in the Panchayati Raj Act and other laws being in force.
The villagers appreciated the initiative taken by present Sarpanch Sharan Meti to start the collection of house tax and trade tax from the corporate houses as per the Panchayati Raj Act to replace the lump sum system of collection of taxes which the villagers said was a fraud against the panchayat.
Narayan D Naik demanded that the panchayat collect sopo taxes from the market which the sarpanch agreed and it was also decided to levy House Tax on the slum houses built illegally on Sancoale Comunidade land with clear instruction that the house tax would not bestow any legal status viz a viz the structures.
Earlier, the panchayat approved the budget with certain changes such as increasing the budgetary allocation for buying land for panchayat ghar.
