MARGAO
A host of issues took the centrestage at the gram sabha of the Betalbatim village panchayat on Sunday with members raising concern over the licence issued for construction of villas.
At the gram sabha meeting chaired by Sarpanch Anthony Fernandes, members questioned the licence issued by the panchayat body, pointing out that the panchayat had in the past issued licence for bungalows in the village.
The members pointed out that the panchayat should check the ground realities and should not blindly issue the construction licences just because of the technical clearance granted by the Town and Country Planning Department.
Former Minister Mickky Pacheco pointed out that the TCP list out a host of conditions before granting the technical clearance, demanding to know whether the panchayat ensures the compliance of the conditions before issuing the construction licence.
Issues such as bio-metric reader in the Panchayat ghar, discharge of sewage by establishments were amongst the issues discussed at the meeting.
A PWD junior engineer was invited by the PWD to explain the members over the water supply provision for the village, with the engineer pointing out that the water requirement in Betalbatim village has now increased to 1.5MLD.
Sarpanch Anthony later told the media that the construction licence for the four villas has been issued by the panchayat after the technical clearance by the TCP. Given that the four villas has provision for mini swimming pools, the sarpanch pointed out that he has obtained undertakings from the parties that they will arrange the water through water tankers and also install a power transformer.
“If there is still something that has been violated by the villas, the panchayat is ready to take action,” he said.
Gram sabha member Jose Cota later told the media that when villagers have no enough water for consumption, permission has been granted for bungalows with swimming pools. He wondered how come the permission is issued when there is not even proper road access to the property.
The sarpanch has promised to order an inquiry into the functioning of the bio-metric finger scan reader.
