MARGAO, NOV 19
Believe it or not, Margao Municipal City Fathers on Friday gave their stamp of approval for brand new mobile sets for their official use, which may cost the civic body nothing less than a whopping Rs 1 lakh.
A suggestion put forth by Chief Officer Prasanna Acharya that the councillors can be reimbursed their telephone bills amounting to Rs 500 per month did not find favour with the City Fathers, who insisted for the new sets.
The issue over the purchase of new mobile sets was informally discussed after elections to the Standing Committee and Subjects Committee, with Chairperson Sushila Naik initiating the discussions to elicit opinion of the city Fathers.
Most of the City Fathers gave their green signal for the purchase of new handsets, notwithstanding that the proposal would cost the MMC Rs 1 lakh, with the Chairperson imposing a slab of Rs 5000 per set, even though many a Councilor was found insisting for a handset each costing Rs 6000.
Councilors in the previous body had enjoyed the mobile phone facility along with Municipal officials. While most of the outgoing City Fathers have surrendered their cell phones to the Civic body, it is learnt that they cannot be put to use because of wear and tear.
This has raised a serious question why the Civic body had to go for mobile phones for the councillors spending large sum of tax payer’s money when they are rendered literally redundant after five years.
When contacted, Margao Municipal Chief Officer Prasanna Acharya said he had unofficially suggested to the City Fathers that reimbursement of Rs 500 per month per councillor would have been the best option as that would have saved the cost of purchasing the cell phones for the 20 councillors.
The suggestion has found support with Civic officials who contended that the reimbursement system would have saved the cost of the purchase of new mobiles and their maintenance.
Incidentally, while the City Fathers discussed at length the cell phone facility, none sought to know the financial position of the civic body, the huge outstanding arrears running into crores of rupees and how to streamline the recovery system.
