The Margao Municipality building is a heritage building which has recently completed 100 years of age. The building being a heritage site requires permissions from the Archaeological Department for any changes or a new setup. Surprisingly, in the year 2015 a cabin at the entrance of the MMC was set up without any permission from competent authorities and now, no one knows what the cabin is meant for.
The cabin was built in 2015 and according to reliable sources, there are no permissions from the Archaeological department in the records of the MMC. It is also known that the Archaeological Department doesn’t have any idea about this cabin have being set up at the MMC. This cabin was set up in the tenure of IAS Chief Officer, Navin Laxman in the monsoons of 2015. Otherwise the MMC has various departments within itself in which there are various departments like taxation, sanitation and administration. Additionally, the Chairperson’s and Chief Officer’s cabins are also present here. These sections are set up in huge individual halls on the Ground and First floor of the MMC building.
The cabin in reference was set up as a single window service for commercial, construction licences and other paperwork of people visiting MMC. There is a peon in the cabin who accepts and does all the paper work.
This cabin has been surrounded by controversies since its inception. RTI activist, Sriram Raiturkar who filed for the details of the cabin, found that there has been no tender floated for the work of this cabin or any quotation has been taken for it. “If there was no tender floated, it means there was no contractor and no record of expenditure. The MMC has not bought any material for the cabin and there is no report of inspection of commissioning on record says the RTI,” he said. “The cabin is undoubtedly illegal and an independent inquiry has to be carried out in regard to it,” Raiturkar demanded. If not the MMC, then who did this work is the question which is now doing the rounds in the halls of the MMC. The MMC building depicts the years gone by and the changes which the town has seen. Nearly 10 years back, the MMC undertook the renovation of the building in a big way, spending crores of rupees. The entire procedure for the renovation has been completed and the work has been executed, says the record of the MMC.
It may be recalled that every time the MMC carries out encroachment drives, they have to dump the confiscated goods right at the entrance of the MMC which causes inconvenience to people and is also an eyesore. The MMC has no functional warehouse or a storing place for such occasions. It is surprising how a cabin right in front of the MMC comes up without any legal frame work, ignoring various other needs of the MMC.
