MAPUSA
Frequent power failures and irregular water supply dominated the proceedings in the Siolim-Marna gram sabha on Sunday as locals asked the panchayat to get its act right to resolve the basic needs of the people in the village.
The locals also demanded a ban on mega projects in the village until the infrastructure issues were put in place.
Several gram sabha members questioned the recent power failure in parts of Siolim-Marna which inconvenienced the residents from almost 36 hours.
They said that such power cuts have become the order of the day and the electricity department officials constantly pushed the fault on failure of transformers.
“We have credible information that load shedding is happening in our village. We want to know what steps the panchayat is taking to stop this problem so that the locals get uninterrupted power supply. If we don’t act now then in the next 10 years we will be doomed,” a local said.
Recently, areas of Tarchibhat, Bamonvaddo, Modlembhat and Guddem faced frequent power cuts due to problems with the Siolim-Sodiem feeder which kept on tripping.
Siolim-Marna Sarpanch, Sharmila Vernekar informed that the problem of power will get resolved once the work on underground cabling is taken up in the village.
She also said that there was a need to upgrade some of the transformers which will be taken up with the help of the local MLA.
The sarpanch said that problems on water supply will also be resolved once work on the water treatment plant is taken up.
With the growing pressure on the power and water supply infra, locals demanded that the panchayat should stop issuing licences to mega projects in the village.
“We have had enough problems of irregular power and water supply. It’s time to take some tough decisions. The panchayat should ban mega projects in the village until and unless proper power and water infrastructure is in place,” a local said.
The sarpanch informed the gram sabha that the panchayat cannot stop issuing licenses to construction projects once it gets approved from the Town and Country Planning department.
“We issue licenses only after the TCP grants approval to the construction projects,” Vernekar said.
The gram sabha also set up various village panchayat committees such as the bio-diversity management committee, village development committee, garbage committee, road safety committee etc.
