Parra villagers vent ire over garbage collection

NT NETWORK

 

PARRA

Issues related to garbage collection and nullah cleaning dominated the gram sabha of Parra panchayat on Sunday.

Regarding garbage issue, it was highlighted that while the panchayat charges a fee of Rs 500 per house a year for door-to-door garbage collection, the contractor entrusted with the task was not collecting garbage.

A villager said that in this case the panchayat should refund the money to the people.

Sarpanch Delilah Lobo told the gram sabha that the panchayat does not have the required budget to pay to the garbage contractor.

She said the village has 2,000 houses and a total amount of Rs 10 lakh is collected while the shortfall is of Rs 17 lakh. She said the panchayat has requested for funds under 14th finance.

The villagers suggested collecting fees over rented rooms as this will add to the revenue of the panchayat. The sarpanch said that she will instruct panch members to identify houses in their respective wards that have rooms rented out.

Villagers pointed out that workers that are deployed for nullah cleaning work do not do the job properly and as such flooding persists.

The sarpanch said that nullah cleaning work is carried out by WRD but workers refuse to clean the nullahs due to sewage.

Regarding a well, the sarpanch said that cleaning of well is taken up under a scheme, but worker availability was an issue.

Panchayat secretary Rui Cardozo said that the government has instructed the village panchayat to constitute different committees as such ward development, village education, traffic management and road safety, village water and sanitation and child development committees were formed.

The sarpanch informed the gram sabha that on August 14, the primary health centre Siolim will organise a non-communicable disease cell camp as such different OPDs will be conducted and villagers were requested to take advantage of the free medical camp.