TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: Twelve out of the 20 Margao Municipal Councillors on Wednesday urged the Chief Officer to scrap the ongoing process of e-tendering of development works citing procedural irregularities.
MMC Chairperosn, Arthur D’Silva, however, has firmly ruled out the possibility of scrapping the tenders, saying the civic body has obtained all permission. He further said the councillors opposed to the tender should give in writing that the tendered works should not be taken up in their wards, stating that the civic body would utilise the funds in other wards.
Addressing the media, the 12 signatories to the no-trust motion against the MMC Chairperson lodged their strong objection with the Chief Officer over the floating of tenders. They claimed that the Chairperson has shown undue haste in floating the tenders when a no-confidence motion is hanging over his head. They also cautioned the Chief Officer on the mad rush adopted by her office in clearing bills of certain contractors without verification in detail.
A representation made to the chief officer stated that most of the estimates are old and some of the works have been either already executed by the PWD or some cannot be executed as required land is not available, adding that this fact has been concealed by the office at the time of submitting files for obtaining technical sanction.
While Dayanand Deulkar demanded scrapping of the tenders, with a plea to recover the expenses incurred on floating the tender from the officers concerned, Pratima Coutinho said she smelt a rat over the mad rush to complete the tendering process. “You cannot tender works worth above Rs five lakh without NIT and technical sanction from the PWD. We have information that no such sanction has been obtained from the PWD,” she said. Pratima further wondered whether the road work tendered in her ward would ever become a reality for want of acquisition of the land.
Councillor Damu Shirodkar termed the entire tendering process illegal, demanding its immediate withdrawal.
Arthur, however, maintained that no tender can be floated without obtaining the necessary permissions. “The civic body has all the permissions. These councillors cannot demand scrapping of the tender. At the most, they can ask in writing not to carry out the tendered works in their wards to
facilitate the civic body to utilise the amount in other Municipal wards,” Arthur said.
He dismissed all talks of hanky panky in floating
of the tenders, saying these have been floated after
complying with the set guidelines.
