PERNEM: The long pending border dispute between Tuem village panchayat and Pernem Municipal Council is still brewing. Since both the authoritative bodies have failed to resolve the issue, the owners of establishments in the area are confused as ever about whom to approach to obtain required permits and whom to pay their taxes to.
The owners of ongoing constructions are also bewildered regarding the clarity of jurisdiction where their properties stand.
Around 6 months ago, MLA Jeet Arolkar had convened a meeting of locals to discuss the issue and had assured to resolve it with the government. He had also promised to discuss the matter with PMC councillors and Tuem panchayat members. However, there has been no development since then.
Earlier, Tuem hospital premises was part of PMC jurisdiction along with some part of Virnoda. Later, Tuem and Virnoda became independent panchayats but gave rise to border disputes since the aforementioned parts were still kept under PMC’s jurisdiction.
As per Tuem panchayat, the area till ITI belongs to them while PMC claims area from Tuem hospital till the residence of former ZP member Dipak Kalangutkar is under civic body’s jurisdiction. Kalangutkar as well as Miramar Hotel owner pay their taxes to PMC till date.
“During the foundation of Pernem municipality, the entire Pernem city was marked as a municipal area in the government gazette. As mentioned in the gazette, demarcation is the only way to resolve the border dispute and bring more clarity regarding the jurisdiction,” said Tuem deputy sarpanch Nilesh Kandolkar.
“The officials of the Directorate of Panchayat should appoint a special team to settle the border dispute. Once we had issued a show cause notice to a party to stop the illegal cutting. The party responded to us saying that the respective survey number does not come under the jurisdiction of Virnoda panchayat. So, the Pernem municipality again issued them the notice. I feel they probably told them the same. This is serious given the increase in demand for the land in Tuem and Pernem. This will have a ripple effect on all the panchayats in Pernem in the near future,” said Virnoda’s former sarpanch Adv Sitaram Parab.
It is pertinent to note that Tuem’s Murmusem area comes under PMC’s jurisdiction and is supposed to pay their taxes to PMC. But except a few houses and the Miramar Hotel, no one pays their taxes to PMC. Presently, all the revenue from the ITI area goes to the Tuem panchayat and the dispute is pending in the court of the Directorate of Panchayats.
