CHIMBEL: The Chimbel gram sabha on Sunday wholeheartedly congratulated Goa Foundation whose petition led the Bombay High Court to direct the government to notify the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and its adjoining areas as a Tiger Reserve.
A unanimous resolution was passed backing the historic decision of the Court and the members expressed hope that it would help the authorities concerned to seek the protection of Goa’s interest in the Mhadei water diversion issue.
Govind Shirodkar said, “We support the decision of the High Court on the Tiger Reserve. We appreciate the efforts taken by Norma and Claude Alvares of the Goa Foundation. We congratulate them. Tiger Reserve will have a direct link in the Mhadei matter and we can now hope for positive results.”
The gram sabha witnessed a ruckus as the Village Panchayat allegedly “failed” to revoke the provisional No Objection Certificate (NOC)/ permission granted to a property developer for sub-division of plots in order to make way for a mega construction project proposed near the crematorium.
The attendees questioned Sarpanch Sandesh Shirodkar as to why the Panchayat body failed to revoke the provisional NOC when the developer has not shown the crematorium in the plan even though the traditional pathway has been “erroneously” shown as 10 metre wide road. The attendees expressed fear that once the project materialises the builder may block the access of the villagers to the crematorium.
The attendees pointed out to the Sarpanch that under section 13(b) of the clause of the particular NOC, the Panchayat has the right to revoke the NOC as the applicant has reportedly submitted ‘faulty and incomplete’ documents.
Sarpanch Sandesh Shirodkar informed the attendees that after seeking legal opinion, he had issued a show-cause notice to the developer and if he doesn’t reply by August 5, 2023, then the panchayat will go ahead and revoke the provisional NOC granted to the developer at the fortnightly meeting.
The attendees accused the Sarpanch of providing more than the prescribed time for the developer to reply to the show-cause notice and demanded that the Sarpanch revoke the NOC by August 7 by holding a special meeting of Panchas and also hold a special gram sabha to announce the same. The Sarpanch assured to consider their demands.