Four meetings a month proposed; panchayat secretary to be sole authority
PANAJI
The State government on Tuesday introduced an amendment to the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, proposing to grant protection to buildings reflected in the Records of Rights and survey plans from demolition to allow MLAs and Zilla Panchayat members to attend and deliberate in the gram sabha with voting rights where they are members.
Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho introduced the Goa Panchayat Raj (amendment) Bill 2026 that also speaks about mandating the conduct of four ordinary gram sabha meetings every month. As per the Bill, the panchayat secretary is the only authority to deal with all the matters pertaining to the panchayat.
“The Bill seeks to amend Section 66 of the Act so as to give protection to the buildings which are reflected in the record of rights and the first promulgated survey plan prepared under the provisions of the Goa Land Revenue Code, 1968 (9 of 1969) against demolition,” the Bill stated.
The Bill proposes to insert Section 4-A to give right to the elected representatives of the Legislative Assembly and ZP to attend meetings of the gram sabhas of VPs within their constituencies and to take part in their deliberations with right to vote only if they are members of the gram sabha of the concerned VP.
“The Bill seeks to amend Section 54 of the said Act to enable the village panchayat to hold four ordinary meetings in a month by reducing the time period of service of meeting notice,” it said further.
The Bill stated that it intends to amend Section 47 to remove the ambiguity due to existence of the word “also” which gives an interpretation that besides Panchayat Secretary there also exist another authority to exercise powers under the section.
“The present amendment seeks to remove aforesaid ambiguity and give clear interpretation that Panchayat Secretary is the sole authority to exercise powers in respect of the matters mentioned in Section 47,” it added.
