Cavelossim refuses to pass budget
Questions why beach accesses are still closed
THE GOAN NETWORK
MARGAO
Uproar marked the gram sabha of Cavelossim on Sunday with members refusing to approve the annual budget estimates on grounds that the panchayat has not allocated funds to the works mooted in the annual development plan.
The long pending issue of opening beach access for the public also dominated the gram sabha procedings.
The meeting chaired by Sarpanch Viola D’Costa also witnessed heated exchanges between the elected panchayat members and the gram sabha members. Matters came to a head when the annual budget estimates were placed before the gram sabha for approval. Irish Passainha demanded to know why the panchayat has not allocated any funds to the works proposed by the ward development panels in the annual plan. They sought to know how the panchayat would execute the works when nothing is mentioned on the allocation of funds for these works in the budget estimates.
Even as Passainha and others demanded that the panchayat get the estimates of the works done by the BDO engineers, heated exchanges broke out between the gram sabha and the panch members when the later pointed out that it would take months to get estimates of works at the BDO office.
The gram sabha members, however, stood their grounds and refused to accord approval for the budget, forcing the chair to postpone the matter.
The issue of open beach accesses come back to haunt the gram sabha with members demanding to know why the panchayat has failed to open the accesses during the last four years. When panch Ediwn Barretto attributed the delay to the PWD, saying that the panchayat had submitted the NOCs to the PWD in respect of three beach accesses, the members questioned why the beach accesses have not been opened till date.
The gram sabha adopted a resolution demanding the hot mixing of the main Cavelossim-Benaulim road before the onset of monsoons. Members pointed that the road is in bad shape and is the cause for many accidents.
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