OLD GOA
.At the meeting on Sunday where the makeshift hall was packed with villagers, Paul Fernandes brought to the notice of the panchayat authorities that reports have appeared in the local media that the government has decided to prepare a master plan and sought to know whether the panchayat was aware of it.With the panchayat authorities remaining mum, Govind Shirodkar joined the discussion and vehemently called upon the villagers to oppose the project as he said it will spell doom for the future of the 80% ST population living in Chimbel.“The land at Kadamba plateau has been sold by the landlords and the ST farmers have been left to eke out a living by doing odd jobs,” Shirodkar said while stating that the 7 lakh sq mtrs of land should be actually utilized for the upliftment of these ST farmers.“This is the only government land available in Chimbel and it should be used to provide facilities for the village like playground, multipurpose hall, school, panchayat ghar, toilet complex, etc,” shouted another villager, which was accepted by the well-attended gathering.The villagers also said that the lake which forms part of the land allotted for IT park should be developed so that the water could be used for drinking and irrigation purpose.Meanwhile, the decision of the panchayat to grant occupancy certificate to a project at Chinchwada was debated at length with the villagers wanting to know whether the garbage treatment plant and the sewage treatment plant is in place. However, secretary Ashish Naik could not give a satisfactory reply even as he said they do not have the technical knowledge on the issue. “The decision to grant occupancy certificate is based on the licences from TCP, health, PWD and other departments,” Naik opined.But when pointed out by the villagers that before giving the occupancy certificate, the panchayat has to ensure that the garbage and sewage treatment plants are in place, the secretary nor the sarpanch had any answers. Later, it was decided to keep the occupancy certificate on hold and conduct a re-inspection of the project to determine whether all conditions set by the TCP are met or not.Other issues like desilting of drains before the onset of monsoon, garbage management, etc, were also discussed.Meanwhile the makeshift panchayat hall, which was readied after dismantling the partitions of the Union High School class rooms, was not enough to accommodate the large number of villagers who had gathered at the Sunday meeting.In light of this, locals from Chinchwada have offered to host the Gram Sabha in a hall located in their area since it has the capacity to accommodate large numbers.
