Vasco: The ten recovery teams formed by the Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) have been working on collecting outstanding dues from the commercial defaulters and residents since the last eight days.
MMC Chief Officer Agnelo Fernandes has warned defaulters to clear the same on or before January 31, failing which stringent action will be initiated against them.
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Speaking to the media, he said there is a huge pending recovery of trade tax, arrears, and other dues.
“Some people are seen doing business without trade license and even they have sublet and given their businesses on rent to third parties without any license, permissions from the municipality. Such illegalities cannot be tolerated and the revenue leakage has to be put to an end. MMC has to find out some ways to stop it,” he said.
Considering the pending recovery issue, he said he initiated a drive to conduct a survey of the entire municipal area to get a picture about the number of legal and illegal businesses and extensions at present. “Whoever is doing illegal businesses; MMC will issue notices and stop it. Some things which could be regularized by imposing penalty could be done” Fernandes added.
Commenting on the revenue generation and the delay in salary issue, he explained that revenue generation and collection has to be done because the hard working municipal staff has to face problems due to irregular or delay in salaries.
“Some contract and regular staff, which have their loan installments to be paid and houses to run also face problems due to delayed salaries. So as a last resort to resolve this issue, I will be forced to take strict action on those who conduct illegal businesses in the municipal areas,” he said.
He also stated that he had published the notice on the newspapers requesting the defaulters to pay their dues in time to avoid any punitive action on them.
“If they are not paying on or before January 31 some stringent action on these people will have to be taken. People pay their power, water bills monthly without fail, then why don’t they pay annual trade license and other dues on time to the municipality. People should cooperate with the municipal staff in their survey work and should also pay their dues before the given time,” Fernandes added.
As per sources, it was learnt that MMC has managed to recover Rs 15,46,578.
