The newly-formed Cuncolim Municipal Council (CMC) has a number of challenges before it. The immediate challenge before CMC is to get development work started.
Residents of the town are wondering whether chairperson Lavita Mascarenhas will be able to face these challenges, as there are apprehensions that works may get held up as the council does not have the support of the local MLA.
As the government does not want the council to take credit of any project, the primary challenge before Mascarenhas is to win the trust of local MLA Rajan Naik.
There are many development projects in the pipeline. Mascarenhas and her vice chairperson had said that their first priority would be to complete the projects left incomplete but people ask where will the funds come from.
The council is not self sustaining, faces a financial crunch, has a problem paying salaries despite having many revenue sources and depends almost entirely on government grants. Large amounts of revenue dues are pending recovery and this will be another challenge before the council. House tax, contract fees, rent, trade tax and other fees have to be recovered from the people. CMC will also have to look for new sources of revenue.
Garbage clearance will be another issue to be tackled by the new council. CMC started door-to-door garbage collection four years ago. The council’s dream was to make Cuncolim a bin-free town. Unfortunately this did not happen and the Council has to take the initiative to put the garbage collection system in place. For the past year garbage collection has not been monitored properly and mounds of uncollected garbage can be seen all over the place.
The previous council wanted to construct a multi-facility building at Kalta on agriculture land it had acquired years ago. This land has been given back to the farmer, Vishnu Dessai, by the government and it remains to be seen how the council will go about this project. CMC has also declared it will give shape to the proposed commercial project at Cuncolim bazaar.
There are also complaints that the administration is not on the right track and citizens have to climb the stairs of the municipal building ten times to get a task completed.
CMC does not have the support of government. The seven councillors of the ruling panel have to prove their worth even as the five opposition councillors will be keeping a strict vigil on the ruling group. The question is whether former MLA Joaquim Alemao’s panel will able to handle this.
