the goan I network
CANACONA
Demanding accountability from the elected body, the Agonda gram sabha on Sunday unanimously resolved to ask the village panchayat to intervene in the turtle nesting site petition ongoing in the National Green Tribunal.
Members were vociferous on the issue and derided the sarpancha’s callous attitude in the matter related to the NGT order to GCZMA over tourism structures on the turtle-nesting Agonda shoreline.
When questioned over the panchayat’s indifferent attitude in the matter, the sarpanch informed there was nothing with the panchayat to show Agonda shoreline was notified as turtle nesting site.
The members were also informed that the forest department failed to inform when the Agonda shoreline was notified for turtle nesting in the previous correspondence.
Members than resolved to pass an unanimous resolution asking the panchayat to confirm the fact from the forest department and accordingly intervene in the NGT matter in the ongoing case filed by an NGO against GCZMA and other authorities.
Complaining of acute and unprecedented water shortage, members demanded that the panchayat should execute decisions taken every year to build bhandaras at strategic locations. Every year decisions are taken, but the panchayat has taken no action in this regard for last almost a decade now.
Members complained that due to non existence of bhandaras, the Mudkud river and at least two other places in Agonda river, there was no ground water left in any of the wells in the village in the beginning of April itself.
On the garbage management issue, a member informed that the panchayat had acquired comunidade land but the same had been encroached and the local wasn’t doing anything to reclaim it.
Sarpanch Pramod Phaldessai, Panchayat Secretary and a few members were present for the meeting.
Godwin Fernandes, Shekhar Pagui, Honorat Fernandes, Vivek Gaonkar, Suraj Naikgaunkar were some of the members who took part in the discussions.
