MARGAO: The South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) is reportedly struggling to sustain itself due to shortage of funds even as the local vendors complain about poor maintenance of the retail market.
Several vendors, including those from retail fish market and vegetable market, besides fruit sellers, have alleged that the SGPDA has failed to hear their grievances with regard to carrying out proper maintenance of the market.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
However, officials of the SGPDA have defended themselves by saying that the authority is providing best possible service, despite not having money and no source of revenue to initiate the maintenance works.
It has been also revealed that vendors are only paying Rs 10 towards sopo fee and are opposed to increasing the amount. But SGPDA claims that Rs 10 is a miniscule amount and they cannot maintain the markets with such a paltry sum.
According to the officials, the SGPDA is incurring losses from the retail market as the amount they spend on payments, is more than what they receive in terms of fee.
Interestingly, SGPDA has warned all those vendors and leaders of the retails markets of strict action if they do not stop defaming the Authority “without any valid reason”.
“We are hardly getting Rs 1.5 lakh per month from the vendors as sopo fee. These retail markets owned by the SGPDA perhaps are the only ones in the whole state of Goa, who pay only Rs 10 per day towards sopo. What hurts is that vendors are not ready to pay more, but they want proper maintenance and facilities from the Authority,” said Shaikh Ali Ahmed, Member Secretary, SGPDA.
He informed that the Authority is paying an average of nearly Rs 32,000 towards water bills per month, besides nearly Rs 1 lakh as payments to labourers, who are engaged in cleaning the markets. Many times the Authority finds it difficult to pay salaries to its staff.
“All the allegations made by the vendors pertaining to lack of proper maintenance and not keeping the markets clean are false and baseless. Our workers are engaged in cleaning the markets on a daily basis during evening hours,” the Member Secretary of SGPDA said.
He also said that it is the responsibility of Margao Municipality to handle the garbage menace outside the market compound and nobody should blame the Authority for the same.
Chairman SGPDA, Krishna alias Daji Salkar, told Herald that the high expectations from the vendors is unjustifiable since they just Rs 10 towards sopo fee cannot be justified.
“We had meetings with the vendors before pertaining to increasing the fee but they are not ready, however, in the next couple of days SGPDA will again call a meeting and will finalize the amount of sopo fee”, he informed.
He also said that the authority is finding it very difficult to function and provide the facilities, especially to carry out the repair works when there is no source of generating the revenue and vendors objecting to increase the sopo fees.
“We are ready to provide every facility at the retail markets. But at the same time vendors also need to lend their support,” said Salkar.
On the other hand, Fatima Cardozo, a fish seller, said that SGPDA has failed even in carrying out the cleaning of the market on a daily basis.
“The floor tiles are broken and not repaired till date. We had repaired some portions of the floor with our own money,” she informed.
Suleman Khan, a vendor also alleged that lack of proper maintenance of the markets has affected their business.
