TEAM HERALD
VASCO: Even as the Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) chief officer is without official quarters in Vasco despite assurances from Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar a year ago, the MMC has reportedly used the interest from funds allotted to the chief officer’s bungalow to buy a new car for the MMC chairperson.
It may be recalled that Parrikar, while laying the foundation stone for the chief officer’s bungalow on July 27, 2013, had said: “If the council appoints a technically sound contractor, then the project will be completed within a span of 6-8 months and the building will be inaugurated on the occasion of Patrakar Din on August 1, 2014.”
One year has passed and the work on the proposed chief officer’s bungalow cum commercial complex is yet to be tendered. Incidentally, the then Congress government in 2010 had sanctioned Rs 3 crore to MMC as Golden Jubilee fund to construct the signature project.
The MMC put the funds in a fixed deposit and instead of utilising the funds to construct the chief officer’s bungalow, the council later bought a car for the MMC chairperson on the interest accumulated on Rs 3 crore fixed deposit.
Asked to comment on the delay in the construction of the bungalow, MMC Chief Officer Meghnath Porob explained that when the earlier chief officer had floated the tender for the construction, MMC received only one tender.
“A second tender was then floated by an e-tender process, but no one applied for the tender. I could not float the e-tender for the third time, as the code of e-tendering is in the name of the earlier CO Y B Tavde and I did not have access to the code.”
“When I contacted the agency involved in the e-tendering process, I was informed that they have stopped e-tendering all over the country and that, it would take about two months to restart the process,” Porob said.
When contacted, Councillor Shekar Khadapkar said MMC had passed a resolution to tender the construction work of the bungalow, but the administrative section had delayed the process.
Khadapkar also blamed the council for not following up the issue with the administrative section, despite passing the resolution.
Commenting on the utilization of the interest from the funds allotted to the chief officer’s bungalow to buy a new car for the MMC chairperson, Khadapkar said: “Since there was a shortage of funds with the MMC, the council thought of buying the car from the interest accumulated on the Rs 3 crore fixed deposit. However, the same amount will put back into the Golden Jubilee fund to construct the signature project.”
It may be recalled that Parrikar during laying the foundation stone for the project had blamed the council for not starting construction work of the bungalow.
Parrikar had stated that if the council had started construction work of the chief officer’s bungalow two years back when the golden jubilee fund of Rs 3 crore was allotted, the construction cost would have been much less. He had further said that by the time the project gets completed, the cost would go up to Rs 5 crore.
