Team Herald
MARGAO: The Margao Municipal Council (MMC) on Monday yet again issued a notice to hold an auction of sopo for recovery of sopo charges, a whopping Rs 83.86 lakh.
This time too, the condition that the bidder must have at least three years of experience has been retained.
Earlier, only one contractor had applied and hence the civic body was unable to go ahead with the finalisation of the sopo contractor.
The civic body is hoping that the increase in amount will also increase the revenue in the exchequer. But the auction notice also includes a controversial three-year experience clause, which states that bidders must have at least three years of experience in sopo collection in any municipal area or panchayat area in the State.
It is pertinent to note that at the recently held ordinary meeting of the civic body there was a lot of controversy due to the experience clause.
Councillor Ghanshyam Shirodkar had alleged that the condition was included to discourage potential bidders from taking the sopo contract.
“No civic body can impose such an experience condition when a legal opinion is submitted by the advocate of Margao Municipality,” Shirodkar claimed which was also supported by Chief Officer Rohit Kadam.
In fact, the special meeting of the municipality was in an uproar after most of the councillors questioned the rationale behind the inclusion of the experience clause in the new notice, even as municipal lawyers pointed out that it was illegal to block certain bidders by insisting on experience. Despite the objection, the experience clause has been retained in the notice signed by outgoing Chairperson Lyndon Pereira and Chief Officer Kadam.
The sopo auction notice states that defaulters of MMC will not be eligible to participate. In addition, the municipality shall have the right to extend the collection of fees for another year or more by increasing the bid amount by 25 per cent or more.
The last time when the sopo was auctioned, a single bidder with three years of experience submitted a bid. However, the MMC did not accept this bid. Instead, the file was sent to the Director of Municipal Administration, citing that he had received a lump sum bid and could not take any decision.
Now again, as the notice has been issued on the same terms, the residents are raising the question of whether the municipality wants to award the sopo contract to a certain predetermined contractor.
