Chandor villagers present development plan to panchayat
Fred Menezes
Chandor villagers present development plan to panchayat
NT News Service
Margao, Dec 12: The villagers of Chandor presented a five-year
development plan to the panchayat at the gram sabha held recently.
Titled 'The Five-Year People's Plan for the Sustainable Development
of Chandor Village' (2007-2012), the plan proposes a series of
measures aimed at reasserting the economic and political independence
of the village in the style of the independent village republics of
Gandhi's gram swaraj fame.
Accepting the plan, the sarpanch announced that he would call an
extraordinary gram sabha to discuss the plan. The Chandor Development
Forum, which drafted the plan, intends to publish and distribute copies
to all households in the village. The plan is an elaboration of all the
needs and demands voiced by the people at meetings held in all wards of
the village in the months of August and September as well as research
work done
Among several measures aimed at boosting the economy of the village,
the plan outlines a programme to revive agriculture and restore the
ecological integrity of the village through cooperative, organic
farming. It calls on the villagers, particularly farmers, to take on
themselves the onus of safeguarding the community assets of the
village, particularly hills.
The 60-page document proposes that the obligatory gram sabha meetings
should be held in the various wards of the village in turn rather than
in just the panchayat office. Further, the plan assigns portfolios to
each pancha.
The sarpanch has been given the responsibility of increasing village
income by attracting private economic investment and as many government
welfare schemes into the village as possible. The other panchas have
been assigned portfolios as diverse as tourism development,
agriculture, women and child development and waste re-cycling. The plan
also wants individuals contesting the panchayat elections to first
attend a workshop, or a course, on panchayat functioning before
deigning to enter the panchayat.
To enhance tourism activity, a major make-over of the village has been
visualized. The village panchayat has been assigned the task of
implementing the plan, including working out the financial implications
of the projects proposed says the pressnote released by Mr.Bernard
Mascarenhas, secretary of the forum.