MARGAO
Panchayat Minister, Rajendra Arlekar’s visit to the South Goa Zilla Panchayat following uproar over absence of engineers and funds seemed to have made an impact on the district panchayat body.
If the ZP could not float the tenders since the constitution of the body in around March last year for want of an executive engineer, the Panchayat minister’s visit saw as many as two executive engineers (EEs) deputed to the South Zilla Panchayat to accord financial sanctions for the technical estimates.
While the Director of Municipal Administration Elvis Gomes had placed Margao Municipal Engineer Surendra Goankar at the South Goa ZP to expedite work in addition to his own duties, Chief Engineer, WRD S T Nadkarni had issued an order directing Basavraj V Pujari to hold additional charge of executive engineer, South Goa ZP, with immediate effect.
When The Goan contacted ZP Chief Executive Engineer Krishna Signapurkar to shed light on the deputation of two A grade engineers to work as executive engineers in the South Zilla Panchayat, he said the ZP will require the services of only one executive engineer.
Meanwhile, post-Arlekar’s visit to the South ZP, officials in the know said the ZP has received a letter sanctioning a development grant of Rs 4 crore. The ZP had earlier received a grant of Rs 2 crore and the body has now received an additional Rs 4 crore for development works.
Convenor of Goa Panchayat Raj Institutions, Santan Rodrigues, however, said that the government should streamline the Zilla Panchayat by appointing adequate number of junior engineers to prepare the estimates for the development works. “Mere sanction of funds and deputation of the executive engineer is not enough if there are no adequate number of field engineers to prepare the estimates," Santan said.
Information gathered from the South Zilla Panchayat revealed that the body has decided to spent equal amount of funds in all the 25 ZP constituencies, with each constituency now entitled for a development grant of Rs 25 lakh.
