OLD GOA
The St Estevam gram sabha, on Sunday, saw heated arguments over the Material Recovery Facility (MRF) and plans by a private entity to take over comunidade fields and sluice gates. Regarding the MRF, the villagers pointed out that the current MRF is in a residential area and it used to belong to the Education Department.
“In the conditional NOC issued by the Education Department to the panchayat for setting up MRF, it is clearly mentioned that there cannot be new construction,” local Orlando Gomes informed.
“Therefore, we demand that the site has to be used as it is, without any construction, for the purpose of only segregation of dry waste and care has to be taken that cleanliness is maintained around the area,” Gomes stated.
Later, a resolution was passed in the gram sabha that the site would be used only for segregation of dry waste. As for the private entity’s application to the panchayat to seek permission to take over fallow comunidade fields and untendered sluice gates, the villagers opposed the same and urged the panchayat to file objections with the authorities concerned like the Collector, Mamlatdar, Administrator of Comunidades (Central) and other authorities.
“We object to the proposal from the private entity to take over our land and we urge the panchayat to file objections with the relevant authorities,” a local said.
To this, sarpanch Smita Sawant said that the panchayat has already filed objections with all the authorities and that it has not issued any NOC for the private entity.
Earlier, the villagers refused to approve the proposed budget estimates for the year 2024-25 as they said that copies of the same should be provided to the villagers in advance. Also, the panchayat authorities came in for severe criticism for including the point of reading and confirming the proceedings of the previous gram sabha when the minutes book has been confiscated by the Old Goa police.
The villagers said that without reading the minutes of the previous gram sabha, there is no question of confirming the same.
