Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Brisco Lobo <[email protected]>
Date: 03/01/2019 19:22 (GMT+05:30) To: Tony Soares <[email protected]>
Subject:
Flat 5G1
Kamat Holiday Homes
Calangute Goa
Tel 9822983387
31st January 2018The EditorO HeraldoPanajiGoa. Dear Editor. Letter to Editor
Panchayat Woes I would be grateful if you would publish the letter below which
I have called PANCHAYAT WOES. You can shorten it if you wish or change some of
the names. Yours sincerely Antonio (Tony) M SoaresTel 9822983387
PANCHAYAT WOESI am a Goan NRI based in
UK now retired. I travel to Goa every year and spend 3 months at a flat I
bought in a resort in Calangute in 1997. I went to the local Panchayat every
year for 13 years and paid the House Tax and was given always given a receipt
in the name of the developer and never in my name. At the time I only had an
Agreement of Sale. In 2011 I was finally given a Sale Deed.Armed with the Deed,
I went to the Panchayat to have the House Tax put in my name and that was where
my problems with the Panchayat began. I had to gather numerous documents some
had to be notarised copies and presented them. I was asked to go into the
market and buy a file to put them into. I did that and submitted it. Nothing
changed, the receipt was still issued in the name of the developer who by now
had closed his company. In 2014 I went to the office and the person responsible
agreed to try and discover what had happened to the request to change the name.
When I called back a few weeks later, he told me it at been approved at a
meeting of the Panchayat held on 15. December 2012. However, the next time I
went to pay the tax, they still would not issue a receipt in my name. “Go and
see the guy in that back office” they said. There was no one in the back
office.I wrote several letters to the Director of Panchayat with no success.
All he did was reply with a copy of the letter to the Block Development Officer
asking him to investigate and report back. All the BDO did was to send me a
letter enclosing a letter he sent to the Panchayat asking them to investigate
and I heard nothing. After another complaint to the Director of Panchayats
which got me nowhere, I wrote saying I would not pay any more house tax unless
the receipt was given in my name as I was the owner paying it. Nothing happened
and nobody seemed to car that the tax went uncollected.In February 2018 I was
advised to meet a local politician who apparently is the local strongman
controlling the Panchayat. I explained my case. “No problem” he said. “Go and
see Jennifer Fernandes and she will sort it out for you. I called at the office
several times but she was either on leave, at a meeting, at lunch or somewhere
else. It was time to go back to the UK. When I came back to Goa on my winter
sojourn in December 2018 a full six years after the change of name was
approved, I went looking for Jennifer. Hurrah she was at her desk. She told me
to see Joseph at the front desk who sent me to see someone else who in turn
asked me to see the Secretary. The Secretary told me I would have to start a
new file againbecause this was a new Panchayat and the old people had all
gone!In any other country this is a job that would take minutes once proof of
ownership like a Sale Deed had been provided. Like the Electricity Department
these bodies are overstaffed, full of staff, who see their role as making life
difficult for honest citizen and not as solving problems. I believe that if I
had suggested a bribe (which I refuse to do) the job would have been promptly
done and dusted. As a socialist, I am not generally in favour of privatisation
but the only practical way of getting rid of the deadwood and cure corruption
is through privatisation. In the meantime I have the house tax in the Bank
waiting for the Panchayat to say they would issue in the name of the person who
is actually paying the tax.
