MARGAO
Are the Constitutionally-mandated District Planning Committees destined to be confined to the record books when these panels have a task cut out to play a big role in the state’s bottom to top planning?
Consider this. The 21 members of the Goa Legislative Assembly representing the constituencies in South Goa district, the permanent members of the South Goa District Planning Committee, will be heading home sans attending a single meeting of the re-constituted panel in the last one year.
That’s not all. The South Goa Zilla Panchayat has been presided over by as many as four chief executive officers in the last one year, but none of them deemed fit to convene a meeting of the DPC to deliberate and set in motion the planning process, throwing an oft-repeated question whether the MLAs and the government-appointed chief executive officers are keen in taking the DPC process forward and give effect to the 73rd Constitutional Amendment mandate.
It’s unclear whether any of the 21 MLAs representing the Assembly constituencies of South Goa had ever questioned the district ZP Chief Executive Officer, the Secretary of DPC, over the delay in convening a meeting of the planning committee.
That’s not all. The MPs representing the district, including the Lok Sabha MP and the Rajya Sabha MP, are members of the DPC, but it isn’t clear whether they too had at any point of time inquired why not a single DPC meeting has taken place in the last one year.
Hopes were raised exactly a year ago when the Zilla Panchayat was constituted after the polls, that the newly-constituted South Goa Zilla Panchayat would pave the way for the constitution of the District Planning Committee and set in motion the planning process.
Take note, the newly-elected ZP body headed by Suvarna Tendulkar set the process in motion by holding the election of ZP members on the DPC. Since then, the re-constituted DPC has remained on paper after the Director of Panchayat notified the committee in the office gazette in July last.
Sadly, since July last till date not a meeting of the DPC has taken place, raising question over the callous attitude of the members as well as that of the secretary of the panel.
When The Goan called up Panchayat Director Siddhi Halarnkar in August last over the fate of the DPCs in the state, she was quick to reply that the government has notified the reconstituted DPCs, even going to the extent of saying the first meeting of the committees will take place before Ganesh Chaturthi.
The proposed DPC meeting neither took place after Ganesh Chaturthi nor after Diwali and Christmas. Convening of a meeting of the DPC is ruled out in the next two months as the state is heading for elections and the election code of conduct is expected to come into force anytime from now.
What’s interesting to note is that the office of the Panchayat Director over a year and a half ago had gone overboard in taking the DPCs forward after Margao-based NGO United Goans Foundation filed a writ petition in the High Court over the defunct DPCs.
In fact, things seem to have returned to square one as evident by the fact that not a single meeting of the reconstituted South DPC has taken place last year, leave along taking the planning process forward.
Petitioner says will file contempt if govt fails to begin planning process
MARGAO: Petitioner in the High Court, UGF Secretary Avinash Tavares expressed his disgust with the way the government and the DPC are going about their madated tasks. Tavares has warned that he may soon move the court with a contempt petition as the ground reality has not changed for the better.
“Recently, we had a presentation for one of the village panchayats of Salcete explaining how it could go about preparing the plan before it is forwarded to the DPC,” Tavares said. He, however, expressed his concern that no attempt was made to take the DPC process forward by the authorities.
