OLD GOA
St Estevam locals, on Sunday, forced the panchayat authorities to adjourn the gram sabha over the absence of video recording of the meeting, which the villagers said was mandatory.
When the gram sabha began, the villagers said that they won’t allow the gram sabha to go ahead without video recording and gave some time for the authorities to make arrangements for the same.
After a while, as there was no sign of arrangement being made for video recording, the villagers resolved to adjourn the gram sabha and hold the same next Sunday i.e. on December 4.
Meanwhile, as the resolution was being proposed there was pandemonium between two groups of villagers over the drafting of the resolution.
When The Goan contacted sarpanch Saira Narvekar to speak on the issue, she declined to comment.
However, a local Mariano Ferrao said that since there was no provision for video recording, it was decided that the gram sabha should be adjourned.
“A resolution was proposed that the gram sabha be held on December 4. However, pandemonium prevailed over the drafting of the resolution and the gram sabha was ended,” Ferrao said.
On the insistence of video recording, another local Evaristo Rodrigues informed that in the past there have been instances when the minutes have been manipulated.
“Therefore, we were urging that video recording be done of the gram sabha to avoid manipulation of minutes,” Rodrigues added.
