MARGAO: The Benaulim Sarpanch told Herald that the panchayat is considering taking the legal route, to prevent the Western Bypass stretch in the village from being built on embankments.
“We have met all the concerned State-level ministers including the Chief Minister. We have also met Union Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari. Since no concrete assurance has been forthcoming, the panchayat has been exploring the legal route. The panchayat has appointed a Resource Person to guide us, who I am in constant touch with. We meet or telephonically discuss the bypass issue almost on a daily basis. This has been conveyed to the committee members regularly,” said Sarpanch Xavier Pereira.
“All details cannot be put in public domain until the needful has been done. Going to court is the last option and this panchayat doesn’t want to lose this opportunity by filing a frivolous or a haphazardly prepared petition to the Court. We will take appropriate steps at the appropriate time,” said Pereira. Pereira claimed that none of the village Sarpanchas until 2016, nor the farmers bothered to take up the issue nor brought it to the notice of the Gram Sabha.
“The Western Bypass issue came to haunt Benaulim in 1995. Only on a GS resolution passed in 2016-17, then Sarpanch Remedios Fernandes wrote to then Chief Minister, late Manohar Parrikar,” said the Sarpanch.
He added that a series of meetings were held with the government post that, but with no concrete assurance coming, they met the important legal luminaries in Goa until 2019.
“There was a change in Sarpanch and the ruling dispensation in 2020. The then panchayat body ignored the petition filed by one villager making the panchayat as a Respondent. The members kept the file in a cupboard, without taking any action. It is only this present panchayat body that has been aggressively pursuing the matter, taking into confidence the GS-appointed Committee for the Western Bypass on Stilts in Benaulim,” Pereira added.
