PONDA
Tension flared up at the Bandora panchayat office on Thursday as Sarpanch Nayan Naik was restrained by locals from leaving the office for nearly two hours, after locals demanded the revocation of the NOC for a sewage project in the village.
Naik was allowed to leave the office after one-and-half hours only when she reportedly gave the angry locals an assurance of cancelling the NOC to the Sewerage and Infrastructural Development Corporation of Goa.
Around 40-odd people had gathered near the panchayat after learning that the panchayat's fortnightly meeting was being convened on Thursday evening. Two locals also set in the meeting with prior permission of the panchayat.
As soon as the panchayat meeting ended at 5 pm, the two locals attending the meeting informed the people outside that the panchayat was not revoking the NOC. The angry locals then barged into the panchayat office and restrained the sarpanch from leaving the office.
The proposed sewerage plant at Undir-Bandora has sparked off protests from locals, who have accused the panchayat of keeping them in the dark regarding the project.
Locals allege that panchayat had issued the NOC without even knowing the survey number.
“How could the panchayat have issued an NOC only on the basis of the proposed site plan? It has not mentioned the survey number,” Gurudas Naik, who has been spearheading the agitation, told The Goan.
The issue was raised by Gurudas Naik in the previous Gram Sabha and locals had also submitted representations against the proposed project to the Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and other officials.
Locals began shouting slogans against the panchayat body for not revoking the NOC. They did not accept the panchayat's assurance that sewerage officers would be invited to resolve the issue and wanted the NOC to be revoked immediately.
On hearing that his mother had been restrained from leaving the panchayat office, Nayan's son rushed to the panchayat and tried to intervene in the matter.
This aggravated the situation as locals bluntly told him that he had no authority to speak on behalf of the sarpanch.
As the sarpanch, who is in her sixties, tried to leave the office, she as manhandled by some persons at the main door. Later, she was quickly taken inside her abin.
Interestingly, the male constables present in the office could not control the crowd and not a single female police constable was present at the site, though the police was aware that a woman sarpanch was the main target of the irate locals.
Sarpanch Nayan Naik repeatedly complained to the panchas present in the office that she had been manhandled, but they could do little to defuse the situation. She was allowed to leave the office only after she assured to ‘cancel’ the NOC to the controversial project.
