TEAM HERALD
PORVORIM: Criticised for having jeopardised the door-to-door garbage collection drive of the Pilerne-Marra Panchayat, the Mapusa BDO on Monday finally granted sanction to the panchayat to release funds to clear the pending dues of the contractor.
“The BDO has accepted our tender and has requested the panchayat to issue the work order to the contractor to collect the garbage. The BDO has also allowed the panchayat to clear the pending bills of the contractor,” Pilerne-Marra Sarpanch Sandeep Bandodkar told Herald.
It may be recalled that the panchayat had accused the BDO of stalling the sanction to pay the garbage contractor his dues of nearly Rs 4.7 lakh which had been pending since the past six months. The garbage contractor had threatened to stop garbage collection in the three wards at PDA colony, Nova Cidade Colony, Green Valley and Porvorim plateau, which could have posed severe problem to hundreds of residents in the area.
The Director of Panchayats later clarified that the BDO’s clearance was only required to release any payment which is less than Rs 5 lakh and added that the BDO was obliged to grant approval to the panchayat to release payment to the contractor, if the panchayat completed legal procedures and if all documents were in order.
