Govt to amend Goa Panchayat Raj Act

NT NETWORK

Panaji

Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho on Friday said the state government will bring an amendment to the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, 1994, during the forthcoming one-day Assembly session to enable MLAs and Zilla Parishad members to participate in the gram sabha meetings that are conducted by the village panchayats of their respective constituencies.

“The amendment to the Act will officially allow MLA and ZP member to attend the meeting if he/she wishes…they can convey their viewpoints by participating in the gram sabha proceedings,” Godinho said interacting with media persons in Panaji. He, however, clarified that the MLA and the ZP member will have no voting rights.

Godinho indicated that the second amendment to the said Act will be brought in order to ensure that the applications seeking construction licences or occupancy certificates for projects having more than four dwelling units – multi-dwelling residential projects or commercial projects having 200 square metres and more built-up area – are routed by the village panchayat secretaries to the government through block development officer (BDO).

“One (amendment) is as far as garbage is concerned, people opposed administrative orders which were in tune with the directive given by the NGT, now that will come in terms of the Panchayati Raj Act,” the minister said.

It is pertinent to note that on January 10, 2020, the Directorate of Panchayats had issued a circular in this regard.

According to the particular circular,  the project proponent having more than four dwelling units including multi-dwelling residential project or having 200 sq mt or above total built-up area of commercial project were asked to submit application for construction licence or occupancy certificate, as the case may be, to the block development officer along with the relevant documents and were also directed to submit the complete details of the garbage generation, collection, disposal, transportation, storage and scientific disposal of wet and dry waste in the form of notarised affidavit.

The BDO or his/her representative were asked to personally verify all the aspects pertaining to arrangement made by the project proponents regarding garbage storage, transportation mechanism and facilities set up for scientific disposal of garbage.

The said circular was later withdrawn by the government after village panchayats opposed this decision including the panchayats ‘controlled’ by the ruling party.