SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
DHIRAJ HARMALKAR
VASCO: Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC), which is one of the richest municipalities in Goa, has completely failed in recovering its outstanding dues, rents, lease rents from the leaseholders, since 1997 which runs into crores.
The revision of house taxes from the municipal area was done in 1973 and since then, a lot has changed in the port town; yet the municipality’s coffers remain empty and MMC struggles every month to pay salaries to their staff and workers.
The previous Chief Officer of MMC, Gaurish Sankhwalkar wrote to the Director of Urban Development that there are government offices functioning in the municipal buildings and their outstanding dues are yet to be paid to the MMC. The letter highlighted that the defaulters have failed to pay their lease rent dues in spite of demand notices and personal hearings.
However the total recovery landscape is bigger than this. MMC Chief Officer Arvind Bugde said there are 700 leaseholders are present in the municipal area, including major leaseholders such as Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Sahakar Bhandar from whom approximately Rs 35 crores are outstanding.
From the 700 leaseholders, 75% of them are paying their rent regularly. The 25%, which are not paying, are the major leaseholders, who are supposed to pay higher amounts.
As far as the government and allied officers are concerned, the big three defaulters, according to the letter which Herald has seen, are ‘The Post Officer Delivery structure’, ‘Office of Mamlatdar’ and the ‘Office of the Filaria Control Unit’, whose outstandings alone accrue to about Rs 85 lakhs. At that time there were 12 on the list, each of them a government undertaking including key State government departments managing essential and civic services.
Take for instance; one outstanding mentioned in the MMC letter of 2019, listing the outstandings, states “Post office delivery structure”.
It owes MMC about Rs 40 lakhs. Interestingly there is another entry, that mentions “India Post and Telegraph dept” whose outstanding is Rs 2,06,654. The comments column of that entry states “Shifted to the new premises without paying actual outstanding rent.” According to MMC sources, the response reportedly received the postal department to these queries was surely eyebrow-raising, if not hair-raising.
The post office apparently claimed that it was a central department and these dues were no applicable to them. However, this has not been independently verified from the Postal Department as the Vasco post office does not have a fully functional head and the staff present, are either not aware or not armed or authorized with information
The second biggie defaulter is the Mamlatdar office with outstanding dues of around Rs 24 lakh. The third biggest is the office of Filaria Control Unit - where immunisation takes place – who was supposed to pay Rs 19 lakhs in 2019.
The other offices, which have not paid their MMC dues (see box for the full list) includes the offices of the Deputy Collector, the Communidade, BSNL Customer Services centre, Sub Registrar and Civil Registrar, Director of Health Services, Electricity Department, Asst Engineer Electric G & O and Director Animal Husbandry and Veterinary services.
These offices are mainly spread over the Municipal Building and the Kossambe building, an ancient structure owned by the MMC
The Chief Officer has further requested the Director of Urban Development to issue necessary directives to the concerned government department to settle the above outstanding dues of rent at the earliest.
From May 5, 1997, the govt imposed Rs. 25 per sq metre per month as a base rate for lease of commercial property, Rs.8 per sq metre per month for residential property and Rs 3 Sopo tax per day for vendors.
Every year a 5% increase was levied in the lease rent until August 2004.
In September 2004, a 10% increase in lease rent was imposed by the government. Some leaseholders are objecting to paying the lease rent citing that there is no valid approval from the government. As a result since 1997, the recovery has been piled up, a source from the Recovery section of MMC informed.
But the bottom line is clear. None of the government departments, at least, are bothered. The replies of the Mamlatdar and the Electricity department of Vasco (see box) are both shocking and a measure of the absolute inefficiency that has permeated government functioning.
