TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: If the Margao Municipal Council has not received development funds since the BJP government assumed power around a year and half ago, then the civic body will have itself to blame for the state-of-affairs.
Urban Development Minister Francis D’Souza defended the government by saying the Margao Municipal Council must not have sent proposals for development grants. Director of Municipal Administration, Elvis Gomes also sought to know whether the Municipality had forwarded any proposal for funds, saying that funds do not come just like that.
The Urban Development Minister even went to the extent of saying that the Margao civic body should show what proposals were sent to the government for development funds. “I have given money to all the civic bodies, depending on their needs. If they don’t send the proposal, there’s no question of providing the grants. When I say a proposal, it means the civic body sends the proposal with the estimates,” he said, while asserting that his department has not received any developmental proposal from the civic body, demolishing claims made by the Chairperson that Margao has not received any development fund during the BJP tenure.
Meanwhile, the Urban Development Minister has underlined the need to enhance capacity building of the civic bodies to execute developmental projects. “We will consider giving the civic body additional engineers to give a push to the development works. Funds sanctioned to the Margao Municipality to take up signature projects remain unspent till date. This may be because the civic body has no capacity to spend the funds,” he said.
He also disclosed plans to bring about changes to empower Municipal Assistant Engineers to sanction estimates upto Rs five lakh. “I feel the ceiling of Rs two lakh is too small an amount for an Assistant Engineer to sanction,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Urban Development Minister during an interaction with MMC employees during his surprise visit to the civic body appealed to the Employees to put in their efforts to boost revenue collection. “Any municipality will have to shut down if it cannot generate funds to pay the staff salaries. And I am of the opinion that every Municipality should earn sufficient revenue to pay the staff salaries,” he said.
