Goa Sarpanchas wake up to Panchayati Raj nightmare

The Goan dissent to the panchayati raj amendment bill is continuously rising with new vigilant groups emerging from the Goan fraternity and the most affected of these are obviously the sarpanchas who have realised albeit a bit late that their authority is bound to be completely undermined if the proposed bill is enacted into a law. The South Goa Sarpanchas Forum (SGSF) was thus another new body formed to oppose the bill tooth and nail.

At a well attended meeting held at Margao, the SGSF called upon panchayats from all villages in south Goa to call for the gram sabhas to deliberate on the recently passed Goa panchayat amendment bill 2009 and subsequently resolved to submit a memorandum to the governor Mr Shivinder Singh Sidhu urging him to deny his assent to the draconian bill.

The meeting which as attended to by over 70 elected representatives resolved to oppose the "usurpal of powers" of the peoples elected representatives of the Goan village panchayats which they strongly condemned and termed it as contrary to letter and spirit of the "73rd amendment of the constitution"

Last week, the Goa assembly amidst a walkout staged by the opposition, had passed the above bill which would confer executive powers on the panchayat secretaries . The sarpanchas deputy sarpanchas and the panchas have termed this action unwarranted and anti-people. The meeting also condemned the Panchayat minister Mr Manohar Azgaonkar as well as other MLAs supporting the bill