VASCO
Vasco City has a population of over 1 lakh spread across 25 wards and yet, there is only one municipal tree cutter for the entire municipality.
Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) Chairperson Damodar Kaskar admitted that the municipal council had only one tree cutter, while responding to accusations by Councillor Shami Salkar that the council had not acted on her frequent reminders and a tree eventually came crashing down on Sunday.
"We have only one tree cutter and he has been busy clearing trees which fell during the cyclone and he has been allotted to all 25 wards in rotation. In the recent past, there were many trees which had fallen in the MMC garden and we cleared them after providing the councillor with a tree cutter for many days,” said Kaskar.
Kaskar was reacting to allegations by Shami Salkar and her husband, former councillor Krishna Daji Salkar that the MMC had been playing politics over the tree cutter and had ignored multiple reminders to trim old and weak trees in the city.
“All the trees were trimmed and cleared near La Paz Hotel and hence, it is wrong to say that MMC deliberately did not provide them with the tree cutter," said Kaskar.
Kaskar insisted that he has been doing justice to all councillors and had been taking up all their works without any politics.
“The incident of the tree crashing down is very unfortunate but it is wrong to blame the MMC over the incident. Shami Salkar may not realise that in the three months after I took over as chairperson, we have cleared gutters near Kashi Dairy, Talaulikar hospital.”
“We have also cleared debris in most of the city wards and they can't claim that we have not given them labourers," said Kaskar.
