THURSDAY, JULY 04, 2024
Team Herald
PONDA: When administration at doorsteps did not reach this mother from Bhoma, and her son decided to sit on the Mamlatdar’s doorstep.
Mother and son duo from Bhoma, senior citizen Prema Naik and her son Suresh have been seeking action on their complaint against their neighbour for allegedly encroaching upon their property since the last four months, but there has been no action from the authorities.
Miffed with the government inaction on their complaint, the duo on Monday, decided to protest by staging a sit-in at Ponda Mamlatdar’s office to save her house from encroachment by her neighbour.
According to Suresh Naik, his neighbour has started repair work of his house for which he has no objection. However, the neighbour has encroached into his property, due to which rainwater is directly entering into his house property. Further, the neighbour has built a septic tank, which is encroaching onto his property.
According to Suresh, following his complaint filed in January this year, the local panchayat issued a stop work order to his neighbour.
But the very next day, without proper verification, Bhoma-Adcolna Panchayat revoked its order and gave permission for conducting repairs of the house and in this regard, he had filed complaint in last February to BDO, Mamlatdar, asking for justice and even warning to stage sit-in, if no justice was done. Ponda Mamlatdar directed the panchayat to take proper action into the matter, but it failed to Act.
Thereafter, he again made a complaint under Section 66/1of Goa Panchayat Raj Act. However, the Sarpanch and Secretary inspected the site, but failed to take any action.
Suresh further said that since the panchayat and government authorities were not taking action into the encroachment issue, he has been forced to stage a sit-in in front of Ponda administrative building, having the office of Deputy Collector, Mamlatdar and the BDO. He said his agitation will continue till his family gets justice. He said if the authorities fail to take action, all the 13 members of his family will join the agitation.
Meanwhile, when the media approached Ponda BDO, Ashwin Desai on the issue and asked him why no action was taken by the panchayat for the past four months, he said he will direct the panchayat to take action.
He said that based on the permissions received from the BDO, the panchayat gave the permission to repair the house.
“However, if the house owner has violated the terms and conditions and encroachment into other’s property, then the panchayat needs to verify or take action on complaint. It's the responsibility of the panchayat to verify complaints filed by the citizens and act on violations, if any, after site inspection and verifications of documents of both the parties,” Ponda BDO, Ashwin Desai, said.
