MARGAO: The Sarzora Gram Sabha on Sunday strongly objected to dropping the “Any Other Business” from the agenda of the gram sabhas and accused the Director of Panchayats of curtailing the rights of the villagers by restricting their participation in the gram sabha.
“Gram Sabhas are meant for people to express their views and participate and by dropping ‘Any Other Business” from the agenda, we the villages are denied our right to participate in the gram sabha as all of us cannot give in writing the issues we want to raise,” a villager said.
The issue was raised when the sarpanch declared the gram sabha ended, as there was no correspondence from the people for discussion. However, as villagers objected, she said their objection to the removal of any other business would be noted.
Incidentally, the gram sabha at Sarzora was over within 40 minutes even as some villagers raised issues like the power failures and theft of fuses, transformers not being covered, garbage by the roadside and people releasing kitchen waste in roadside drains.
