None of the 3,119 projects received funding as govt ignored draft development plans for 2024-25; Zilla officials are hesitant to collect new plans from local bodies, fearing criticism for last year’s unimplemented projects
File photo of the South Goa District Planning Committee meeting held on January 11 last to approve the district Development Plan.
MARGAO
Around this time exactly a year ago, officials and staff of the South Goa District Planning Committee were all preoccupied with the task of compiling and giving final touches to the development plans received from the panchayats and municipal bodies, besides the district Zilla Panchayat.
Reason: Once compiled, the development plan is required to be placed before a meeting of the District Development Committee (DPC) to consolidate all the plans into a District Development Plan before the plan is forwarded to the government for funding.
This year, however, not much activity is noticed on this front at the South Goa Zilla Panchayat. And, the reason is not far to seek.
For, the fate and status of the District Development Plan prepared by the DPC for the financial year 2024-25, estimated at a whopping Rs 229.42 crore, remains unknown, with none of the 3,119 developmental projects receiving funds for their implementation.
Indeed, with no sign of the District Development Plan getting financial approval from the government, the process of formulating a new development plan for the district financial year 2025-26 seemed to have hit a block.
For, South Goa Zilla officials in private concede that the process of obtaining development plans from the panchayat and municipal bodies have not been set in motion with gusto like a year ago out of fear of facing flak from the local bodies for the failure to implement the plans submitted to the DPC last year.
In fact, a district Zilla Panchayat official admitted that the exercise of preparing the District Development Plan after obtaining development plans from the panchayat, municipal bodies, beside the district Zilla Panchayat has ended in futility. An official pointed out that the draft development plans prepared for the financial year 2024-25 has literally received a cold shoulder from the government till date.
“With what face will we go back to the panchayats to send their development plans to the District Planning Committee when none of the development works figuring in the District Development Plan for the financial year 2024-25 has received financial sanction for execution,” remarked a senior official in the know.
Consider this. Around December last year, the District Planning Committee headed by Chairperson Suvarna Tendulkar and Member Secretary Florina Colaco were engaged in the serious exercise of obtaining development plans from the panchayat bodies spread across South Goa before compiling the draft-development plan.
The duo had called a meeting of the DPC on December 13 last year, first time in three years, to discuss the draft Development Plan, though it’s another matter that the meeting had to be adjourned for lack of quorum. It was on January 11 this year that the South Goa District Planning Committee had for the first time in its 23-year-old history had fulfilled the Constitutional mandate of preparing and adopting the District Development Plan for South Goa.
When The Goan called up South Goa Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer, Florina Colaco, who also heads the District Planning Committee as its Member Secretary, to shed light on the District Development Plan, she only said she will check with the office whether any of the panchayat bodies have submitted development plans for including in the District Development Plan.
Unlike last year, Colaco is now holding additional charge of South Goa ZP CEO, having assumed charge of office from Gaurish Sankhwalkar only a month ago. It’s however, amply evident that the process of calling a meeting of the District Planning Committee, leave alone formulating the plan, has hit a block this time round, with questions doing the rounds whether the South Goa DPC will complete the process of preparing a District Development Plan for 2025-26 before the end of the calendar year.
