Just a week ago, the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) made headlines for the wrong reasons -- featuring among dozens of State establishments which are defaulters and owe the State government itself crores of rupees in electricity dues.
Much of these power arrears the CCP owes the State government's electricity department are accounted for by the electricity consumed in the Panaji market mired in a long forgotten 'market scam' which has left the capital's civic body earning zero revenue over the nearly two decades since it was commissioned in 2004-05.
Multiple probe reports into the scam, which has its genesis in the then authorities locacting the tenant-merchants in the new premises without executing fresh lease agreements or deeds, are gathering dust in some or the other government department.
The last time the 'market scam' had been taken up and seemed to have been inching towards a resolution was a decade ago in 2013, when former Goa bureaucrat, N D Agrawal had completed his probe and submitted his report. It was when veteran CCP corporator Surendra Furtado, a vociferous campaigner against the scam occupied the mayoral post.
But the 'market scam' got pushed to the back-burner and eventually into cold storage as Furtado had a fallout with current Revenue Minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate, when he was chosen the Congress candidate to contest the 2014 Panaji bye-election when the late Manohar Parrikar shifted as Defence Minister to Delhi.
Furtado's attempt to refer the file through a formal complaint to the Goa State Lokayukta got frustrated when Monserrate pulled the rug and replaced him as mayor.
Since then, the only time that the 'market scam' got recalled into public consciousness was during the campaign for the CCP polls in 2016 and more recently in 2021. Even Furtado, who continues to be a significant opposition voice in the CCP, seems to have lost steam in pursuing the matter and save the civic body from losing unearned rental revenues to the tune of nearly Rs 12 crore annually.
Meanwhile, who are making merry at the chaotic market in the capital are the hundreds of merchants occupying shops and spaces allocated to them through unknown processes in which multiple ex-mayors and commissioners are complicit and have their hands dirty from.
Presently as Monserrate's son, Rohit, occupies the mayor's post with a brute majority, there are no signs whatsoever that the scam which could now be worth dozens of crores of rupees -- all revenue that the cash-starved CCP shoud have rightfully earned but didn't -- will get untangled and any of the culprits brought to book.
