KARSTEN MIRANDA
The Margao Municipal Council (MMC) has come under criticism for its recent actions that have been seen as anti-public. They have been accused of going back on their promise of engaging with the public and all stakeholders and not just the supporters of elected councillors.
There are two charges against them, the first being the prevention of public from attending council meetings, the same meetings that saw the past council being held accountable for its actions. And the second is its new admin system for public seeking to visit the MMC for work. This new system has made the public angry.
Advocate Rajeev Gomes has filed a complaint with the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) in connection with the public wishing to attend the council meetings.
“It has been observed that the MMC has been holding its meetings in the Municipal Hall, by occupying the area reserved earlier for the public. This has been done without making any alternative seating arrangement for the public to witness the proceedings. It appears to me that the public sitting area has been deliberately usurped by the council to hold its meetings, in order to deprive citizens from witnessing the proceedings of the Council,” said Adv Rajeev.
“The above subterfuge of preventing citizens from witnessing the proceedings of the meetings of the Council is in violation of the Goa Municipalities Acts and an infringement of the fundamental rights of the citizens,” added Adv Rajeev.
He fervently requested the DMA Elvis Gomes to forthwith direct the Chairperson and Chief Officer of the MMC to make adequate seating arrangements for the public in the Municipal Hall to witness the proceedings at the Council meetings.
The systemic change in the problems’ redressal at the Margao Municipal Council has begun troubling the public for quite some time now. To add on to the problems the Chief Officer and the Chairperson of the MMC have now begun a system wherein the people have to now fill in a visitor’s slip in which the people have to file their details and the work they are seeking. Particulars like name, address, details of why the person wishes to meet the officials and several other things need to be filled in.
The learned and also the common people approaching the MMC are outraged due to this arrangement since they are forced to waste long hours outside the cabins and are compelled to give unnecessary details of their visit.
The Clean Margao Green Margao member Rajendra Talak, at a press conference, has openly criticised the new system of the MMC and claims that it is hampering the speed and the transparency of problem redressal.
“When I attempted to meet the Chief Officer and the Chairperson I was handed over a lengthy visitor’s slip wherein I had to fill details of my visit and then I was made to wait for quite some time. I wonder what the MMC intends to do by loading the people with this when there are so many problems already to deal with,” Talak said.
“On one hand the Government and administrations are working for faster delivery of documents under the Right to Public Service Guarantee Act. On the other hand the MMC is making people fill in visitor’s slip for a simple meeting with the authorities which is very bad practice. The MMC has to understand that elderly, handicapped and unwell people come to the MMC and they are forced to fill unnecessary walk in slips. This is a shameful and a condemnable practice,” said Nelson Fernandes, a visitor to the MMC.
“We are demanding that this Chief Officer be shunted out of the MMC as he has no sensitivity towards the people’s issues and problems,” Croydon Medeira told Herald.
The inward counter of the MMC Chairperson and the Chief Officer has been moved two metres further into the corridor and the waiting area for the visitors has been pushed ahead into the corridor. Hundreds of people visit the MMC every day and this is for the first time that the system of a visitor’s slip has been introduced.
The Chief Officer, Siddhivinayak Naik, while justifying the visitors slip compulsion, says that the MMC is a first class council and being located in the centre of Margao needs security from untoward happenings. The Chief Officer calls it a security move but this security move has been troubling a lot of people every day, said a visitor to the MMC.
“You will recollect that the Margao Municipal Council had obtained permission from your good self to hold a public oath taking ceremony at Lohia Maidan, Margao, on the claim that the Council will be people friendly and transparent in its functioning,” said Advocate Rajeev in his letter to the DMA against
the MMC.
