MAPUSA
People’s power prevailed after Pilerne Sarpanch, Sandip Bandodkar stopped ongoing hill cutting work in the village on Sunday morning.
The sarpanch also assured the agitated locals to issue stop notice to the owners who were carrying out levelling work on the picturesque Pilerne hill.
Aggrieved villagers along with the Pilerne Citizens Forum marched to the hill cutting site after authorities failed to respond to the letters of the forum questioning the development on the hill.
“We don’t want the greenery to be spoiled as we want our hills to remain for our posterity. The panchayat should immediately revoke permissions issued to the owners of the plot,” said Prakash Bandodkar of Pilerne Citizens Forum.
He said a month back the forum members had stopped the hill cutting work and immediately wrote to the local panchayat, Deputy Town Planner, Mapusa and the TCP office in Panaji.
“None of the authorities replied to queries raised by us. And after a gap of almost a month we found work on levelling of the area had begun with the help of some bouncers,” Prakash said.
He said the work was being carried out in survey no 86/3 in Marra village which is a hill and sloppy area.
Initially, the sarpanch expressed his helplessness in stopping the work as the owners had the permission of the TCP but later gave in due to public pressure.
