PANAJI
In about three months from now, yet another five-year term of the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) will come to an end and an election will put in place a new set of 30 councillors to preside over the capital city's civic matters.
However the two-decades-old Panaji market scam which has left the Corporation earning zero revenue in rents since it was commissioned in 2004-05, remains unresolved even as the findings of two probe reports, including one by senior bureaucrat N D Agarwal, continue to gather dust in an obscure corner of the department of municipal administration.
The scam has its genesis in the act of omission by the administration in giving possession of the new premises to the tenant-merchants without executing fresh lease agreements or deeds.
The last time the 'market scam' had been taken up and seemed to have been inching towards some sort of a resolution was in 2013, when 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 after the late Manohar Parrikar shifted as Defence Minister to Delhi.
Monserrate pulled the rug from under Furtado's feet and frustrated his attempt to refer the scam to the Goa State Lokayukta via a formal complaint.
Since then, the only time that the 'market scam' got recalled into public consciousness was during the CCP poll campaigns in 2016 and 2021.
Even Furtado, who continues to be a significant opposition voice in the CCP, seems to have lost interest in pursuing the matter. The civic body in the bargain continues to lose 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 obscure processes. Multiple ex-mayors, corporators and commissioners are complicit in the shady deals.
Meanwhile, Monserrate's son, Rohit, who has occupied the mayor's post for all the five years of the CCP's current term with a brute majority, has only paid lip service to resolving the issue.
Monserrate Junior told The Goan that the CCP's estate officer is in talks with the tenant-merchants and many of them have veered around to agreeing to sign fresh lease agreements with the corporation.
A senior CCP official however said that it isn't as simple as the Mayor makes it out to be.
At least one-third of the original allottees are not traceable and the occupants are third parties to whom the stalls and shops are sub-leased.
With yet another election knocking, Panjimites will have to wait until the new set of 30 councillors take charge for a new five-year term before they can get a sense of whether the great 'market scam' will actually get resolved or simply be forgotten, much like in the three earlier five-year terms.
