MARGAO
Even as the debate rages on whether tours undertaken by Zilla Panchayat members are study tours or in reality junkets, members of the South Goa Zilla Panchayat accompanied by officials have all headed to Gujarat for a week-long sojourn at the cost of the exchequer.
While the avowed objective behind the tour is to study the pattern of devolution of powers to the district panchayat bodies, the latest junket is expected to cost the exchequer a whopping Rs 10 lakh.
Sources in the know said the South Goa Zilla Panchayat has already paid 90 per cent of the tour cost amounting to Rs 7.50 lakh and the balance payment will be paid in due course of time. The Zilla Panchayat will spend around Rs 40,000 on each of the 24 touring members, including the Chairperson Navnath Naik and Chief Executive Officer Florina Colaco as they caught the first available flight to head to Gujarat as part of the tour.
The present lot of Zilla members had started their term with a whirlwind tour of the country’s east, including the states of Odisha, West Bengal and Assam. Inquiries have revealed that the first tour was undertaken by the present lot of zilla members and then CEO Krishna Signapurkar around three years in February 2016.
The then government headed by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar had sanctioned the so-called study tour, but with a condition that the tour expenses should be borne by the South Goa ZP administrative head.
Junkets camouflaged as study tours have virtually been a norm than an exception at the South Goa Zilla Panchayat since its inception 19 years ago in 2000. Over the years, South Goa zilla members have travelled right up to the Wagah border with Pakistan in Punjab under the guise of study tours. And, not to mention the picturesque Kulu Manali and Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh in the country’s North East, which were all part of the study tour itinerary of successive zilla members. Officials in the know say the study tours are sanctioned by the government for the Zilla Panchayats in a bid to keep the members in good humour. With successive governments defaulting in the devolution of powers and functions to the district panchayat bodies under the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, panchayat ministers in particular and the government in general have been more than generous in sanctioning study tours for ZP members.
The ongoing study tour, sources said, was promised by Panchayat Mauvin Godinho, late last year when he was invited by the South Goa Zilla panchayat at their programme at the Ravindra Bhavan.
Take note, the touring members had never defaulted in submitting a report to successive governments on the funding pattern of these district panchayat bodies in their respective states, as well as the powers bestowed on these Constitutional bodies under the 73rd Amendment, only to be ignored by the powers that be as evident by the fact that Zilla Panchayats are still awaiting the powers and functions envisaged under the Panchayat Raj Act.
