PANAJI
Panchayats Minister Mauvin Godinho on Thursday said the government will appoint administrators to run the affairs of all the 186 panchayats whose terms are ending by Monday.
The terms of these panchayat bodies end on Sunday June 19.
"As soon as their term expires, we should have administrators in place. We have already taken the necessary steps. You will see administrators in place much earlier than you expect,” Godinho said.
The State government has deferred holding elections to the panchayats after a Supreme Court judgement pertaining to Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra mandated that reservations for OBCs should follow a defined process or the elections be held without reservations.
Consequently, the State government decided to defer the elections to enable the State Election Commission follow the procedure for reservation of wards for OBCs.
Owing to the decision, the government said it will appoint administrators to run the local bodies in the interim.
ZUARI LAND: On the controversy surrounding the land given to Zuari Agro Chemical Limited, Godinho said the government can do very little as third party rights have already been created due to selling and reselling of the land.
The State had sold around 500 ha land to ZACL in 1971 at the rate of a meagre 20 paise per sqm for setting up the fertiliser industry and thus creating jobs for Goans. Mauvin, however said there was no mention in 1971 papers that the land was to be used only for industries.
“That means the land can be used for something else,” he said. “Now that the land has been transferred to another party who in turn sold it, it is their land. Once such third party rights are created, I don’t know how much we can do to retrieve the land,” he added while asserting that government also wanted that the land to be used for industries.
It may be recalled that the Goa Forward Party leader Vijai Sardesai had recently alleged a multi-crore scam in slump sale of ZACL.
