PANAJI:
The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) has extended the deadline for tenants occupying shops and space in the new market complex to submit documentary proof of their rights.
The earlier deadline had ended on February 28, but the CCP has now extended it to March 15.
The documents, once filed by the occupants, will be verified against past records as well as the list of verified tenants prepared by the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) when it completed the construction and relocated the vendors and businesses there.
The CCP is then expected to execute lease-and-licence agreements with the rightful claimants so that the occupation of the market spaces is legally tenable and the civic body can begin collecting revenues in rents, besides levying electricity charges and maintenance fees.
The occupants are required to submit an affidavit-cum-declaration-cum-undertaking to back the rightful claim to occupancy to the shops they are in possession of. The documents are to be submitted to the taxation officer and dates obtained for execution of the leave-and-licence agreement for a 30-year period.
The necessity to issue notices arose as the GSIDC and the then State administration in its anxiety to put the ready market in operation had given possession of shops to the tenants of the old, demolished market without executing any legal contract or agreement.
Also, many of those given possession originally, had since sublet the shops and spaces allocated to them to third parties complicating matters for the current occupants.
In these murky circumstances, the market was handed over to the CCP which for years has been unable to collect rents or levy fees for maintenance or to foot the electricity charges.
Consequently, the CCP's dues to the Electricity Department have been piling and have now accumulated into several crores of rupees.
