TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) is bankrupt and has no funds to do any infrastructural or civic works, CCP Commissioner Sanjit Rodrigues finally admitted on Tuesday. He said the corporation could not do work in the 30-wards, and the capital would have to suffer from inadequate development in the ongoing financial year.
Rodrigues also declared that government has refused to release any funds to the corporation, considering that the corporation failed to submit 17 utilization certificates adding up to almost Rs 7 crore, over past two years. Also its average monthly expenditure on salaries and wages, was Rs 1.20 crore, which adds to almost 85 percent of its total revenue, he said.
The government and the comptroller auditor general of India (CAG) has pulled up the CCP for failing to clear the pending dues which amounts to around Rs 2.50 crore, which are hanging since I took charges two years back, the commissioner added.
“In such a situation, we are left with no funds and so CCP cannot take up any works in any of the wards, at-least this year,” Rodrigues said. The issue came up when ruling councillor Bento Lourena questioned why 13 projects, estimated to cost Rs 53 lakh, had not been tendered despite being approved by standing committee four months back.
Rodrigues replied that the CCP has no funds to tender Rs 53 lakh works, as it has to clear pending dues. He said that the corporation had to bear unexpected expenditure of Rs 79 lakh, when the High Court directed it to deposit the same towards purchase of land for a crematorium at St Inez, failing which CCP would have lost the land. Further, there were pending bills of Rs 3 crore, of which 50 lakh have been paid off while the balance needs to be cleared; he said, adding there were total 60 utilization certificates worth Rs 17 crore granted by the government, which remained unutilized. “So far we have managed to clear 42 utilization certificates worth Rs 9.2 crore and there is still balance Rs 6.89 crores,” Rodrigues added.
“Lot of money has been picked up and spent,” he said.
Corporators urged the mayor Furtado to seek financial support from the state for carrying out the pending works in the city. “Not once, but 10 times I have made submissions before Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar for funds but till date there has been no reply,” Furtado told corporators.
The ruling councillors also accused the mayor of being egoistic, and being at loggerheads with the government, thus creating problems for CCP’s proper functioning.
