The financially red Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) resolution not to fund the Smart City project of the Union Ministry; cost the Capital city severely with Panjim not getting selected in the first round of Smart City Development Mission. The Corporation reeling under financial deficit of around Rs 6 crore (as per the Budget), has failed to take any major initiative for revenue generation over last five years.
Internal politics within the corporation has by large hit its progress, with BJP backed Mayor Shubham Chodankar showing no keen interest in any of the projects proposed by his predecessor Surendra Furtado and the Commissioner Sanjit Rodrigues. This conflict or clash of self-interest has resulted into loss of around Rs 25 crores to CCP exchequer annually for last three-four years.
The ambitious projects like pay parking in the city, clamping of vehicles parked in no-parking zone, recovery of pending dues from municipal market vendors, pending house tax and its arrears, non collection of dues from the trade board licenses, etc, would have helped CCP to fetch additional revenue, apart from the existing Rs 28 crore revenue.
“The current Mayor (Chodankar) is not in favour of any of these projects. He along with his ruling BJP councilors have managed to lift the clamping of vehicles, which was helping the corporation to get good amount of revenue. The Mayor is also not interest in acting against the illegal market occupants. The clamping and market issue if settled can bring in revenue of around 13-14 crores,” a close sources to CCP confirmed.
When Contacted, former Mayor Surendra Furtado said that with pay parking and clamping of vehicles, CCP can get a revenue of around Rs 2 crore annually. “The markets dues are amounting to Rs 13 crore, which needs to be recovered. Also there is pending House tax of around Rs 5 crore,” he said adding that the amount has been pending since last several years and CCP council has not shown any interest.
Apart from this there are pending arrears like trade (2 cr), signboard (1.16cr) and sanitation (68 lakhs). These are some of the pending amounts that have seen place in CCP budget on the recovery front for years now, with recovery yet to be done.
Pay parking: A decision that’s not getting parked
The City is desperately crying out for regulation of traffic and hence it was proposed to introduce pay parking on trial basis at 18 identified spots in the City. Discussions on pay-parking have been on since as early as 2012 during the tenure of Vaidehi Naik as mayor.
The proposal was approved by CCP on January 24, 2013, to approach the North Goa district collector to notify certain roads. Almost after 20 months in August, 2014 the CCP approached Collector and the areas were notified.
However since then till date, CCP has issued the tenders for nearly four times, with every times the tenders being called off ostensibly due to low rates offered by the contractor. But if sources are to be believed then the Mayor is not happy as his ‘man’ has no tbeen able to get the contract. “The situation is such now that no contractors now want to approach CCP,” sources said. “ The Mayor is also not in favour of Commissioner’s revenue earning projects which has cost the CCP badly,” sources added further.
While Mayor remained unavailable for the comment, Commissioner Sanjit Rodrigues has admitted that the CCP is losing out lot of revenue due to failure in implementing new ways of revenue generation.
Clamping of cars in no parking zones, short lived
The Clamping done by CCP through private contractor along with traffic cell, was working quite well, however, that too got a set back following resentment from few BJP councilors.
Now, with new council taking over post March 6 polls, it would be a biggest challenge to generate revenue to meet the prime criteria of getting Smart City funds. Remember -50 percent of the State’s share of Rs 500 crores has to be borne by the civic body.
