By Marcellus D’Souza

Apr 18: Zagrutt Xaxticar and Goencho Swabhiman Party (GSP) are holding awareness meetings across Goa to highlight the importance of the Panchayati Raj Act and the role of the panchayats.

These meetings come as a backdrop to the elections to the elections to the panchayats which will be held soon.
The State Election Commission (SEC) has completed the delimitation process and is waiting for the Directorate of Panchayats (DoP) to respond and give them the green signal to the SEC to go ahead with the poll process.

Once the delimitation proposals are approved, a notification will be issued to mark the new boundaries of the wards in the village panchayats. This will be done by the end of April, said the SEC. Thereafter, the SEC will begin the reservation process of these wards ahead of the elections. Mauvin Godinho, Panchayat Minister of Goa has set the first week of June as the deadline when the process is completed.

Many Goans are not happy with the delimitation process as family members living in one house have been put in two different wards. Joseph Vaz, general secretary of the Goa Panchayat Democratic Forum said, “I am not happy with delimitation as it should have been done with proper geographical ward boundaries and adequate numbers of voters in each ward. There should be no duplication of votes and repeat of house numbers in more than one ward. The government should have given enough time for the delimitation process and also should have involved their counterparts at village level for clear and fair delimitation. I believe that the government is in a hurry and has no care for grassroots administration, which speaks volume about its desire to give more power to panchayats. The government must take a bigger initiative to make panchayats people friendly.”

“The utter disregard and contempt for our Panchayat bodies is apparent from the callous, thoughtless, and directionless manner in which the recent ward delimitation exercise has been carried out. But then what can one expect from an administration that has consistently demonstrated its lack of respect for the concept of local self government by keeping Goa as the only State that has failed to implement the 73rd and 74th ,said Swapnesh Sherlekar, president of Goencho Swabhiman Party (GSP).

The SEC is said to have received 913 objections and suggestions from North Goa and South Goa as of date.

Goa is the only state in India where the state government has not empowered its 191 village panchayats and gram sabhas to take decisions in 29 subjects, including health, education, family welfare, and land reforms among others.

South Goa consists of 7 talukas while North Goa comprises of Bardez which has 44 villages; Bicholim which has 26 villages; Pernem, 28 villages and Ponda, 32 villages. There are 120 Village Panchayats, 6 Municipal Councils, 1 City of Corporation and 1 “North Goa Zilla Panchayat” in North Goa.