MARGAO
Who is to be blamed if 72 out of the 89 panchayats across the South Goa district have failed to submit the Annual Development Plan to the South District Planning Committee (DPC) in order to prepare a consolidated district draft-Development Plan?
Stakeholders, right from the government to the panchayat authorities, be it the secretaries and the Block Development Officers (BDOs), the District Planning Committee et al may have to grapple with this question and other unanswered questions on the Constitutionally mandated DPCs.
One, did the government authorities, including the Zilla panchayats and the District Planning Committee had at any time sensitize the panchayats to prepare the annual development plan and forward the same to the DPC to prepare a draft-development plan? Secondly, it will be two years now since the South District Planning Committee headed by the Zilla Panchayat Chairperson was constituted in April 2021, throwing up a question of whether the DPC has met any time during these last two years to prepare a road map to implement the constitutionally mandated provisions concerning the district development plan?
The South Goa Zilla Panchayat Chairperson was quick to point out that 72 out of the 89 panchayats in the South Goa district have failed to submit the annual development plans to the DPC.
The Chairperson, sources said, need to answer whether all the municipal bodies in South Goa, have submitted their annual development plans to the DPC to date.
Convenor Goa Panchayat Raj institutions J Santan Rodrigues asserted that the ZP Chairperson should stop resorting to a blame game over the failure of the panchayats to submit the development plan.
He said the DPC as well as the Zilla Panchayat should make a conscious effort to make the panchayats submit their annual development plans to the DPC as per the time frame in the Panchayat rules.
“How many times have the DPC or the government sensitized the panchayats to submit their plans to the DPC? The DPC issue has been hanging fire since the creation of these committees in the State over two decades ago. A blame game will not help anyone to achieve the Constitutional requirement. It is important that the stakeholders sit together and prepare a road map to implement the constitutional Mandate on DPC,” Santan said.
He added: “The DPC Chairperson says that seven other panchayats have submitted the plans sans complying with the format. Who is responsible to guide the panchayat to prepare the annual plans and forward the plans to the DPC in a format? Has the government sensitized the panchayat secretaries and the BDOs on how to go about the job? Simply writing letters to the panchayats to send the plans will not help achieve the Constitutional mandate.”
The District Planning Committees were set up in the State around two decades ago after the creation of the Zilla Panchayats. The DPC have a Constitutional mandate to get the development plans from the Zilla panchayats, Panchayat and Municipal bodies and consolidate them into district draft-development plans before the same is forwarded to the government for implementation.
Sadly, not a single draft-development plan has been put in place by the South District Planning Committee to date, as a result of which the Constitutionally mandated planning bodies are confined to the panchayat record books.
