NESHWIN ALMEIDA
neshwin@herald-goa.com
The Margao Municipal Council Chairperson Dr Babita Prabhudessai Angle has said there are no funds in the Council kitty. However, in the larger interest of the Council, Angle said the only solution was to hike the garbage fees.
But that too went on a back burner after the Margao Market vendors made the MMC realise that a lot of illegal vendors are not even paying sopo tax are and are not even on record as vendors hence the garbage generated by them goes unaccounted and not paid for while the few vendors will bear the brunt of the garbage collection tax.
Next came a rebel group of former councillors who told the Chairperson Dr Babita that many people are running businesses from shops and residential flats in Borda, Fatorda, Margao, Aquem and will be paying the fee for residential garbage collection while they’re commercial units. And all this has put Dr Babita’s ambitious plans of hiking garbage collection fees and sorting on a hold. While other municipalities laugh at Margao and say that funds is not all a requirement when the network to collect unsorted waste completely exists in Margao.
And then came the biggest cup of woes when Madganvkars resorted to Facebook to point out that MMC’s budgets for 2017-18 showed a revenue surplus of Rs 7 crore from last year as unutilized and hence the question asked was then why do you want garbage collection fees to kick-start garbage sorting.
“I asked the MMC Accounts department to clarify these seven crores surplus and they tried to cover up by saying that only the Chief Officer Y B Tawde can answer queries about the same through RTI and explaining to the CO that budget is a public document and hence why an RTI is needed in this matter?,” explains Accounts Professor and Margao Resident Sanjay Sawant Dessai.
Speaking to the Herald Y B Tawde admitted that certain figures in the budget preparation were taken from last year’s records and there seems to be an error of sorts which need correction and hence he downplayed the surplus the budget shown and the MMC’s justification to hike garbage fees for garbage collection and sorting.
“The budget needs to be relooked into and the actual surplus. I admit the error. Also we’re yet to reassess and redraw our records of number of houses across the MMC wards, total outstanding in house tax collection, projected collection and all these figures will help us reassess the kind of funding needed for garbage collection and the actual figure to be re-imposed on homes and offices.
While also Dr Babita admitted that the garbage collection fee didn’t seem to factor hospitals in Margao and Bio-medical waste and its collection and hence the entire fee structure needs changes.
Sadly no MMC councillor from the 25 wards, including the Deputy Chairperson Doris Texeira, wanted to comment on the errors and the system followed to present and table the budget for this year. The excuse of the councillors was that they were not taken into confidence, or that they’re on summer vacation or they are yet to study the matter or take it up with the chairperson, while the accounts department has strictly pointed fingers at the CO for the errors.
On the other hand the Urban Development Minister Francis D’Souza admits that lack of communication and no proposals from the MMC has failed to bag any projects or no smart city presentations or planning from the MMC has led to no fund allocation from the state budget towards the MMC which means that no government money is coming Margao’s way least for this year while the South Goa Planning and Development Authority is yet to be reconstituted by the new chief minister.
