The Margao Municipality’s accounting system follows a strange kind of mathematics. The MMC started off with 15 wards in 1995 and increased to 16 wards in 1995, then enhanced to 20 in 2015 and further increased to 25 in 2015. But that is what the records say and that is something the people of Margao know. But go into the accounts section of the municipality and you find yourself leaping into the past. All records of the municipality, including house tax records, are calculated according to the 15 ward format.
This effectively means that if your house falls in a ward which is different from its ward number in the early 1990’s, the MMC still maintains records according to the demarcation of the ward in the nineties.
Records in possession of Herald show that records like the Ward wise sanitation demand and House Tax collection are maintained for 15 wards and not 25 wards
While the municipality grew, the irony is how the same municipality still follows a 15 wards system since 1995 to maintain records of total sanitation of death and birth and other importance dates of archival importance.
“Our records books are maintained this way for so many years and we are yet to change our systems including maintaining our records which is difficult to change and hence we maintain records of our rents and house tax collected in the old 15 wards manner,” explains Abhay Rane, MMC’s Taxation officer.
The Margao municipality came into existence with Mathgram once being the village of Margao in the Portuguese era to a full-fledged municipality which has grown leaps and bounds.
While two-time former Chairperson Savio Coutinho laughing it out on how the MMC staff is so outdated in maintaining records explains to us how when House tax receipts are issued the ward number is printed on them and hence the MMC is unwilling to revise these house tax receipts and individuals recorded on old ward numbers. But Coutinho needs to explain why he himself couldn’t set the records right when he was Chairperson.
MMC Chairperson Babita Prabhudessai stated that the “entire records need to be revamped and updated and a whole new system needs to be put in place including resurveying all the houses, flats and commercial establishments within Margao and placing them into the new wards which is long pending”. She also admits technical difficulties in starting this process and reclassifying the ward numbers
“The wards of the MMC keep changing due to political reasons or because of the rising population and increasing number of homes and constructions. So to update the system every five years and to re-issue house tax receipts on the increased number of wards maybe difficult hence we have stayed on this ancient system of ours,” explains Abhay Rane from the MMC.
The fact that the MMC chooses to stick to the old format and the fact that all establishments and homes have the ward number of up to fifteen therefore the books of accounts for rent collected, sopo tax, fees for construction licence, trade licences issued and renewed is all maintained in a fifteen wards format which means the entire system of maintaining books of account despite being computerised is maintained and audited in a 15 wards format.
