the goan I network
MARGAO
Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai staged a walk out of the South District Planning Committee (DPC) meeting, while his Curtorim and Sanguem counterparts Reginaldo Lourenco and Prasad Gaonkar termed the meeting as a mere formality as the DPC meeting held on Tuesday ended in an uproar.
Power Minister and Curchorem MLA, Nilesh Cabral, however, took a dig at Sardesai, saying political people had come for the meeting with political agenda, while the meeting had a different agenda to be discussed.
After staging a walkout, Sardesai told the media that the DPC is a political farce perpetuated by the government. “It is clear the government wanted to complete the ritual of having the meeting. This is proved beyond doubt with the Member Secretary saying the DPC has been lying defunct for the last five years,” he said.
Blaming the BJP government for neglecting the ZPs and DPC, Sardesai said DPC chairperson Navnath Naik says he did not call even one meeting of the DPC since the government did not sanction manpower.
“This only goes to show that the BJP is not interested in these constitutionally-mandated committees, but only in holding elections for ZPs on party lines,” he added urging the people to elect non-BJP candidates in the forthcoming ZP polls.
“This is because any other person other than Navnath would have fought for the powers, but the chairperson acted as a stooge of the ruling government to murder the ZP and the DPC,” he said demanding to know whether BJP will contest the ensuing ZP polls on plank of CAA, Pakistan and Shaheen Bagh as the party has failed to devolve powers and funds to the ZPs and DPC.
Curtorim MLA Reginaldo said it was evident that the meet was called as a mere formality and the chairperson did not even read the notification constituting DPC.
Saying he has come for the DPC meeting for the first time, Sanguem MLA Prasad Gaonkar said it was not proper for the chairperson to call for the meeting at the fag end of the tenure.
Accusing Sardesai for trying to make political capital out of the DPC, Cabral tried to clarify that ZP and DPC are not one and the same thing.
“The ZP chairperson is only the chairperson of the DPC. Otherwise, DPC has nothing to do with ZPs,” Cabral said.
The Minister, however, said he will speak to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on providing logistics support to the DPC in terms of manpower to take the planning forward.
Saying that politics will not help the DPC, Cabral said even the panchayats and ZP members from his constituency had not submitted the plans. “This shows there’s no mechanism in place to get the plans from the panchayats. We have to rope in experts to act as a nodal agency,” he said.
To another question, Cabral said the CM is on record saying that government would set up state finance commission for devolution of funds to the bodies.
Incidentally, DPC Member Secretary Agnelo Fernandes said though DPC ought to have been held every year to consolidate the plans from the ZP, panchayats and municipalities, he had called the DPC meeting to make a fresh beginning. He conceded that the meet ought to have been held at the beginning of the five year plan and not at the fag end.
