MARGAO: There was high drama at the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) on Friday during the marathon meeting that lasted a little over four hours, where the civic body was grilled by opposition councillors over alleged financial irregularities that they claimed will lead the council to bankruptcy.
Even after the meeting ended, Chairperson Damodar Shirodkar and opposition councillor, Ghanashyam Shirodker, engaged in a debate, where the Chairperson insisted that the issues of financial irregularities were connected to the decisions taken by the previous ruling panel, of which Ghanashyam was a part of.
However, speaking to media persons after the meeting, Ghanashyam alleged that there were several issues where the finances of the civic body were improperly handled and that this had taken place during Damodar’s tenure as Chairperson.
During the meeting, the opposition councillors pointed to various instances where the MMC had to shell out a very high sum of money to deal with various cases, when the civic body should have in reality paid a far smaller sum.
Many of these cases, be it a long-pending dispute at Gandhi Market, or a dispute with a land-owner in Colmorod, or the arbitration with the former agency handling the Sonsoddo garbage treatment plant or even the payment of the One Time Settlement Scheme (OTS) for pending water bills, questions were raised as to why the MMC staff had allowed the situation to reach such a stage. “Had the staff taken the right decisions at the right time, these matters would not have been delayed so much, prompting the courts or other quasi-judicial authorities to direct MMC to pay hefty fees,” said the councillors.
The councillors also criticised the legal handling of these cases, wherein they alleged that MMC’s defense was weak in the courts, resulting in the civic body losing these legal battles. Ghanashyam also gave the examples of how the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) had recently asked the MMC to recover dues from an employee, or how the High Court had imposed strict restrictions on the council. “These are not small sums, but lakhs of rupees going to waste,” Ghanasyham said. He also criticised how MMC were forced to halt the fresh recruitment process even though it had failed to regularise staff who had worked there for ages.
Speaking to media persons after the meeting, the Chairperson admitted that there has been negligence on the part of the staff and that an inquiry will be conducted to look into recent decisions taken by the administration and technical staff to fix accountability and take action against the errant official. Damodar added that, if need be, they could bring a retired judge to carry out an inquiry.
Council defers hike in plinth area rates ‘in public interest’
MARGAO: The biggest outcome of the council meeting was the resolution that was passed to defer the proposed increase in plinth area rates that had been fixed by the PWD.
While this matter has only been placed on abeyance temporarily, as opposed to the public demand for it to be dropped, the Chairperson said that the decision to defer the increase of new rates was taken in the interest of the public. “The new rates would have meant that it would become very expensive for the public to build houses; and such a big hike would not be fair to them,” Damodar added.
“Though we surely appreciate that all the councillors were unanimous over the decision not to adopt the new plinth area rates, we hope that the Council as soon as possible takes a final decision on the same,” said former MMC Chairperson Savio Coutinho.
“There is every possibility that in the near future when everything is calm and silent, the new PWD rates can be adopted, and the fees can be forcefully recovered with retrospective effect, as has been done in the past,” Coutinho warned.
