MARGAO: Zilla Parishad member Moreno Rebello’s residence issue dominated the Sao Jose de Areal gram sabha on Sunday with a villager terming him an “outsider”.
The gram sabha attended by around 80 villagers and eight of the 11 panchayat members witnessed some heated discussions between Moreno and a villager Freddy Travasso, who pointed out that Moreno had no right to talk to him at the gram sabha since he was not a villager.
Trouble broke out as Freddy accused the panchayat of harassing the locals for any documents by asking them to furnish the documents while issuing a No Objection Certificate based on a simple application made by a person (Moreno) who was not even from the village.
After much goading he revealed that Moreno was issued a NOC by the panchayat based on a simple letter without submitting any documents and further alleged that his name was not even featuring on Form I and XIV of that particular property.
At this Moreno stood to state that he had all the documents and accused Freddy of running a business in the name of a NGO and there were heated discussions between the two with some villagers led by Peter Viegas pacifying the frayed tempers.
Replying to a question asked by Timothy, Moreno said the work of developing the open space at Mogalli was taken up under the Zilla Parishad funds.
He disclosed that the foundation stone that was to be laid on September 8 was postponed only because Freddy had made an application under RTI about that project.
“The ZP office functions in an arbitrary manner and we know what difficulties we have,” he said when asked why the programme had to be postponed because of a RTI application.
He further also disclosed to the villagers that he next proposed to upgrade the hall where the gram sabha was being held.
In another issue, the village panchayat was accused of being selective in filing the police complaints over the illegal constructions and encroachments. Peter along with Freddy listed out various survey numbers where encroachments were done.
