MARCOS GONSALVES
marcos@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Even as the cash strapped Margao civic body is struggling to pay staff salaries, the ‘A class’ Municipality is losing a sizable amount of revenue as it has failed to renew the lease deed of the shops it owns, most of which have expired over three decades ago.
As a result of the MMC’s lackadaisical attitude, many traders are getting away with paying paltry sums of Rs 100 to Rs 350 as monthly rent to the Municipality.
What is even more shocking, is that several tenant traders have themselves leased out their shops or sold them to second and third parties, and the civic body has not initiated any action against them.
O Heraldo has obtained details of such rented premises, together numbering 561, and found that 95% of them are occupied on expired leases.
O Heraldo further observed that the administration of the Margao Municipality does not have a record of whether the lessee to whom the shop was allotted was still occupying it, as nobody has attempted to check the lease agreements of the shops rented out several decades ago.
According to information provided by the office of the civic body, around 286 shops have been rented out in the New Market and around 251 in Gandhi Market. However, there are no records of when the renewals of these shops were done.
Many shops have been sold by executing an agreement or a document. Interestingly most of these agreements have been executed either before a lawyer or a Notary, which has no legal standing, as the MMC, which is the owner of the premises, has not been made a party. Speaking to O Heraldo, councillor Mahesh Amonkar expressed shock and demanded that Chairperson Damodar Shirodkar investigate the matter.
“To my knowledge, even files of many lease agreements are missing from municipal records. There is no record of lease renewal, which was supposed to be done after three years of the agreement. More shocking is that the municipality is losing out on a big amount of revenue, when the Council is unable to pay staff salaries,” he said.
Rajendra Azgaonkar, President of Gandhi Market Traders Association, said they are ready to sit with the civic body to resolve the issue, provided it is treated as a new chapter.
“The traders will be unable to pay arrears of previous years, if demanded by the Municipality. This mess is the result of the civic body not being serious in
following up on lease renewalts. The traders are not to be blamed for this mess,” said Azgaonkar.
One of the officials at the civic body told O Heraldo that it will now be a tough task to check the files as the records of many shops are missing from the treasury.
“To my knowledge, the last lease renewal of the shops was done in 1972, wherein there are also records of the years 1983 and 1985. Post that, no procedure seems to have been followed pertaining to the renewal of the lease
agreements,” said Manuel Barretto, Chief Officer of
the MMC.
