MARGAO
Hazard a guess on the fate of the South Goa District Planning Committee and the District Development Plan these constitutionally-mandated panels put in place every year.
Well, after years of apathy and indifference, the South DPC had set in motion the process to formulate the District Development Plan for the financial year 2023-24.
But, blame it on lack of awareness amongst panchayats and municipalities or simply the government’s apathy and failure to guide these local bodies on how to go about the planning process, an initiative by the South Goa Zilla Panchayat seeking annual development plans from the panchayat and municipal bodies have come a cropper.
For, requests sent by the South ZP to the local bodies to submit the Annual Development Plan either received lukewarm or no response. Hardly five out of the around 90 panchayats in South Goa have responded to the initiative of the South Goa ZP Chief Executive Officer, Florina Colaco. That’s not all. None of the municipal bodies in South Goa got back to the DPC to date.
ZP CEO Colaco told The Goan that her office had requested the local bodies in South Goa to submit the Annual Development Plan for 2023-24 as per the government notification dated July 22, 2021, on or before January 31, 2023, to prepare the District Development Plan for 2023-24.
Sadly, she informed that hardly five panchayats responded, while none of the municipal bodies replied. Given the situation, the South ZP CEO has decided to approach Goa Institute of Public Administration & Rural Development (GIPARD) Director Michael D’Souza to help the DPC to prepare the district development plan.
“I discussed the matter with ZP Chairperson Suvarna Tendulkar and it has been decided to approach the GIPARD director to seek advice on how to plan the matter and if necessary, hold a training session on the planning process,” Colaco added.
Incidentally, the GIPARD had around two years ago mooted a detailed training session for the ZP members, besides local bodies on how to go about implementing the DPC in the two districts. Sadly, correspondence made by the GIPARD director to the Secretary of Urban Development and Secretary, Panchayats had come a cropper.
Convenor of Goa Panchayat Raj Institutions, J Santan Rodrigues, however, said the exercise to formulate the development plan will come a cropper if the DPC fails to do the homework before asking the local bodies to submit the annual development plans.
Santan demanded to know whether the Directorate of Panchayats has put in place guidelines for the local bodies on how to go about preparing the plans and forwarding it to the DPC. “If yes, the next question that arises is whether there was any attempt to sensitise the local bodies on how to go about the job,” he questioned.
Did Directorate of Panchayats take its
memorandum to logical conclusion?
MARGAO
Then Panchayat Director Narayan Gad had on March 6, 2020, sent a memorandum to the South Goa Zilla Panchayat and the panchayats on the preparation of the Annual Development Plans.
Reason? The High Court in PIL Writ Petition No: 06/2018 passed an order dated February 12, 2020, after the court took cognizance of the failure of the panchayats towards the preparation of the Annual Development Plan.
The memorandum pointed out that Section 238(1) of the Goa Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 mandates that every panchayat shall prepare every year a development plan and submit it to the ZP before such date and in such form as may be prescribed.
The memorandum had issued instructions to all the panchayats that every panchayat shall prepare the Annual Development Plan for the year 2020-21 on or before 31/05/2020 and submit it to the respective ZP on or before 15/06/2020, for further necessary action by ZP and DPC.
“The Annual Development Plan shall be prepared in the prescribed form. It is further instructed that failure to adhere to these directions may attract action against the concerned panchayat under Section 50(4) of the Act and the concerned panchayat secretary under service rules applicable to him/her,” the memorandum stated.
Questions are being raised about whether the Directorate of Panchayats had taken the contents of the memorandum to a logical conclusion in the last three years.
DPC constituted in 2021 yet to conduct a meet
MARGAO:
Guess how many meetings of the South District Planning Committee (DPC) have taken place since the panel was constituted in mid-2021?
Well, sources said not a single meeting of the panel headed by Chairperson of South Goa Zilla Panchayat Suvarna Tendulkar has taken place to date, with the chief promising to convene a meeting only after the DPC receives annual development plans from the local bodies.
Besides members elected to the DPC, the MLAs and MPs are all members of the committee.
If sources are to be believed, the last time the meeting of the South DPC took place was during the tenure of the previous South Goa ZP body.
