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A Deceptive Regional Plan
A frantic phone call of a citizen from South Goa inquiring whether the
Extraordinary Gram Sabha meeting convened by his Village Panchayat on a working
day ( 12th January 2009) for final approval of the Regional Plan 2021 was
within the law or not, had me speechless for a few seconds. Just the minimum
specified four days notice was given to the public for such an important
meeting. How do I respond to an anxious man who, one could gauge from his
tone, feared the worst for his future well being and felt helpless in coping
with this State sponsored harakiri?
Personally speaking, I am convinced that there is absolute lawlessness
prevailing in Goa's Panchayati Raj institutions. Even if the illegality
committed is so blatantly clear, the Sarpanch, Village Panchayat Secretary or
any other perpetrator of the illegality who enjoys political patronage will
continue to enjoy total immunity from the law. It is this clout enjoyed by the
politician-bureaucrat nexus that is at the root of corruption in the Village
Panchayats making the institutions growingly unpopular with every passing day.
With a Panchayat minister who seems to operate like an extra-constitutional
authority, the prospects of a people-centric local governance in Goa's villages
seems bleak at least for the time being. Another disaster is that the
interpretation of the Goa Panchayat Raj Act has been entrusted to bureaucrats
who seem to have taken liberty in dispensing justice based more on their
personal views or dictates of their political masters. Inspite of the State gove
rnment having a full-fledged law department which is the competent authority
to give legal opinion on the laws, some government officers continue to
interpret the laws as and how they desire with total unaccountability and
impunity. More than often the public experience is that the interpretation of
law and dispensation of justice is based on the person that finds favour of the
political system. To this fact even the Joint Secretary in the Union
Government's Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Mr T. Raghunandan during his recent
visit to Goa had remarked that, "the player cannot also be the referee in the
same game". He had suggested that an Ombudsman be appointed to settle disputes
while some other advocacy groups suggest the setting up of an independent
Commission under a retired High Court judge to settle disputes arising in
Panchayat institutions. But in the meantime, unfair and unjust practices
continue to be perpetrated on the common man by the Goa government in the name
of de
mocracy.
The only option left for a victimised citizen is to knock the doors of the
higher courts which is both time consuming as well as, very often, beyond the
financial means of an average employed person. The government officials on
the other hand utilise the tax payers (citizen's) money and fully paid working
hours to endlessly defend their positions in courts, while the common man has
to forgo his daily wages and foot the exorbitant legal expert's fees to
defend, more than often, what is called 'public interest'. If the court's
verdict is in favour of the citizen, the bureaucrat and the ministers loose
nothing but the common man definitely lands up being economically poorer except
with a satisfaction that he/she has fulfilled his/.her fundamental duty
enshrined in article 51A of the Constitution of India. It is exactly this
tilted democratic system that prompts the Panchayat minister to use the cover
and protection of his ministerial status to persistently ridicule the Gram S
abhas that are demanding justice against illegalities and destructive projects
in their villages, and challenge them to approach the courts if they feel that
injustice is being done to them. For a rational man this would raise the
natural question, "If citizens are expected to approach the courts to secure
justice in every administrative issue then why do we need the government, its
12 ministers, 40 MLAs and around 45,000 work force?" The konkani adage,
"Fuluchea khustar foznne" or "Fest korta gaum ani Pirjentichem nanv" could well
apply to the Panchayat minister and the bunch of accomplices in government.
Coming to the question of the anxious citizen, I informed him that the law is
silent as regards the day of the week for convening of the extraordinary
meeting. However, I advised, drawing an inference from the law specifying that
the 'Ordinary Meeting' be held on any Sunday of the stipulated months, it would
only be reasonable and just that such an important meeting of a village
council, that involves the finalisation of the suggestions and comments for the
draft RP 2021, be held on a Sunday to ensure greater public participation in
the decision making process. But from the looks of events it appears that the
entire propaganda of people's participation in the RP 2021 is nothing but a
fraud designed by professionals, politicians and others with vested interests
in real estate and construction. Even before the NGO represented on the Task
Force for RP 2021 has released its booklet on reading the RP (better late than
never), even before the Village Committees have been constitute
d in some panchayats, and even before the Technical Teams have furnished all
the basic documents required by the people to make informed choices and
decisions, it is surprising that some Village Panchayats have already started
winding up their operations on the RP 2021. Is this just a coincidence or is it
a deliberate act by vested interests to speed up the process seeing the growing
anomalies in the draft GRP 2021 being unearthed by every village? Why the hurry
and who is it that is so nervous as to speed up the process?
With the Pilerne villagers dragging their problem to the Panchayat authorities
over injustice in the election of the village planning committee and with
several other Gram Sabhas battling it out to ensure a just hearing is given to
them on the RP 2021, it is but evident that the entire process of referring it
to the Village Panchayats, besides having no legal standing is a mega hoax
being sold to unsuspecting citizens as participatory planning under the 73rd
and 74th Constitutional Amendment.. When these gross discrepancies are pointed
out, some members who were represented on the Task Force turn back to claim
that the present draft RP 2021 is far better than the RP2011. This definitely
is no excuse that people ignore the gross misrepresentation of facts be ignored
in a document that is going to shape the path to life and death of the Goan
people, not only for the next 10 years but for the entire 21st century if not
more by its impact. Being a legal document there can be no s
cope for errors to be ignored in the RP 2021.
The people who oppose certain development projects or the RP process are not an
unemployed or idle crowd of Goans that gets a kick from such activitties. They
are often citizens who live from hand to mouth or suffer great financial and
social losses just to fulfill their social and political responsibilities as
citizens. This present process of merely sending some maps to the Village
Panchayats for suggestions and objections and claiming it to be grass-root
participatory planning in accordance with the 73rd and 74th Constitutional
Amendment is nothing but a mockery of the people by the Goa government.
- Soter D'Souza
