Team Herald
VASCO: After years of severe financial crunch the Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) has finally moved out of the red with claims that the treasury now holds ample funds.
According to MMC Chief Officer Deepali Naik, until recently MMC was facing an acute shortage of funds with many unpaid bills, but things had changed dramatically over the past years.
She added that all pending bills were cleared and provisions for different requirements, including the provident fund, too were made.
The MMC chief officer said she was intrigued to learn that despite being one of the richest councils in Goa, salaries of employees were delayed, resulting in strikes and discontentment.
“We are very happy to announce that MMC’s treasury is now flooded with funds,” Naik underlined.
Providing details, she said this was essentially due to the recovery of over Rs 4 crore from tax assessment dues and the receipt of salary grants of Rs 6 crore for the financial year 2014-15 and 2015-16 from the government. We have also collected octroi of Rs 2 cores for the year 2016-17 and have pending octroi of about Rs 48 lakh for the year 2015-16. Likewise, MMC has received Rs 1.47 lakh as token amount (part payment of pending dues) from HPCL and IOCL too is likely to pay its dues. Even Goa Shipyard Limited which did not pay tax to MMC earlier has released over Rs 1 crore as tax dues to MMC, after the assessment of the properties was taken up.
Commenting on the pending dues by MMC, Naik highlighted that all provident fund dues to retired employees were being provided. Similarly, provision of Rs 1.70 crore in employee provident fund account was also made so that MMC could clear the pension dues immediately to retiring employees.
“We have cleared all bills and have Rs 4 crores in access in the municipal treasury, which can be used for the implementation of 7th pay commission,” Naik stressed.
