In 2010 MMC spent Rs 17 lakh to cover the dump, in 2013 the tender is for Rs 7 lakh
TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: Inflation and rising prices might have hit everyone and everything, but covering the Sonsodo waste dumping yard with tarpaulin seems to be an exception.
Otherwise, consider this: In 2010, the Margao Municipal Council spent a whopping Rs 17 lakh to cover Sonsodo to prevent leachate from flowing in the adjoining water bodies.
This year, the civic body has floated a tender to carry out similar work at an estimated cost of Rs seven lakh ~ raising eyebrows in the corridors of the civic body over the 2010 estimates.
What has given a twist to the episode is that the file pertaining to the 2010 estimates relating to the work has mysteriously disappeared from the Municipal technical section, with a week-long hunt to trace the file coming a cropper.
In fact, the ghost of Sonsodo waste dumping site has come back to haunt the Margao Municipal Council, as the Civic body is bracing up to cover the dump yard with ‘tarpaulin’ to stop discharge of leachate into the adjoining water bodies.
The Civic body had taken up work on covering the Sonsodo dump yard in 2010 upon High Court orders to stop flow of leachate from the waste site into the adjoining water nullah.
The civic body had ended up in paying an amount of Rs 17 lakh to the contractor towards the work. That the Municipal estimates were inflated and were on a higher side became evident the following year in 2011, when the work of covering Sonsodo was entrusted to Fomento Green after the company took over the site.
It was gathered from company officials that it had cost them a mere Rs 5-6 lakh to complete the work ~ bringing to the fore questions of alleged manipulations in the estimates for a similar work in 2010.
Incidentally, the file relating to the 2010 project has mysteriously disappeared from the Municipal technical section. It is learnt that the Municipal engineers launched a hunt to trace the file to assist them in preparing this year’s estimates, but found to their shock and surprise that it has gone missing.
“We wanted to know the yardstick employed by the Civic body in 2010 before floating the tender, but could not trace the file,” informed an official in the know, even as a city father felt that only a thorough probe by the government will unearth the true facts vis-à-vis the huge funds spent on the Sonsodo covering work in 2010.
