Goenkarponn Desk
PANAJI: In a dramatic change in direction, the State government has stopped providing financial support to village panchayats in order to address the ongoing problem of waste accumulation.
In order to implement this decision, the Block Development Officers (BDOs) were instructed by the Director of Panchayats, Siddhi Halarnakar, to direct all panchayats to use grants from the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Finance Commission for garbage management within their respective jurisdictions.
The State government has stopped providing garbage grants for the current fiscal year, 2024–25, Halarnakar clarified, citing panchayats’ inability to use central grants effectively.
This is different from what was previously done, when village panchayats received funding through The Goa Panchayats (Grants to Tackle Garbage Menace) Scheme 2017.
Under this scheme, a yearly grant of Rs 2 lakh was given to each of the 191 village panchayats to facilitate door-to-door collection, waste segregation, and disposal of waste, including plastic and dry waste.
Panchayats were classified according to where they were located; these included those near the airport, in suburban areas, along the coast, and with an annual income of up to Rs 25 lakh.
The scheme’s main goal was to provide panchayats the authority to effectively manage waste within their borders by implementing policies for collection, sorting, disposal, and treatment.
Panchayats had to approve a resolution at their biweekly meetings and then submit comprehensive proposals to the BDOs in order to receive these funds.
The government’s decision to stop providing financial aid, however, highlights a change in strategy and indicates a greater reliance on the decentralized funding mechanisms made available by the Finance Commissions.
This action gives panchayats more responsibility to use the resources at their disposal wisely in order to address the urgent waste management issue.
