MARGAO, MARCH 8
It’s more than a month since the Margao Municipal Council inked the Concession agreement with Ms Sociedade de Fomento Industries Pvt Ltd, but both the parties to the agreement seem to have failed to adhere to their commitments relating to the project within one month of signing of the agreement.
Otherwise, just consider this. As per the agreement, the Civic body was mandated to cart away the rejects from the Sonsodo site till date. Proposal to acquire land admeasuring 57,000 sq mts adjoining the dump yard is to materialize till date.
That’s not. The civic body is yet to finalise the consultant to oversee the operation of the plant and machinery and the setting up of the land fill site at the site. Though the High Powered Committee headed by Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat has zeroed in on Ahmedabad-based P U Asnani as the consultant, the Committee is yet to open the financial bid submitted by the Asnani till date.
What’s interesting to note is that the agreement mandates the constitution of a Committee headed by the chief officer within 15 days of the signing of the agreement. Take note, the chief officer has formed a three-member panel headed by him, but is still yet to appoint two prominent and socially responsible citizens of Margao on the Committee.
When contacted, Chief Officer, Prasanna Acharya said the Civic body is in the process of acquiring land admeasuring 57,000 sq mts at Sonsodo, which should solve the problem of disposal of rejects from the site.
On the Consultant, Acharya said he has written to the High Powered Committee to convene a meeting to open the financial bid and finalise the consultant at the earliest.
Incidentally, Ms Sociedade de Fomento Ltd has till date not furnished to the Civic body a Rs two crore performance guarantee as mandated by the agreement. Article VIII relating to performance guarantee states that the Concessionaire shall furnish to the MMC with an unconditional irrevocable bank guarantee of Rs two crore within 30 days of the execution of the agreement.
Senior Fomento officials, however, maintained there should not be any problem in furnishing the Rs two crore performance guarantee, but at the same time pointed out that the Civic body was required to pay to the company the first installment of Rs 1.30 crore upon execution of the agreement.
Company Chief Executive Officer, Sridhar Kamat, however, said that Fomento is awaiting for the Civic body to acquire the additional land at Sonsodo to commence work at the site in right earnest. “The site is saturated with waste. We have installed one trammel and two more trammels are on the way. But, the Civic body has not identified any site for the transportation of rejects. All this has delayed the commencement of operations”, he added.
Kamat, however, said that this has not come in the way of the company to place orders for the plant and machinery at Sonsodo.
