PANAJI
Complainant Mukundraj Mudras, has said that Straight Deal Services which has been collecting parking fees on behalf of the Corporation, besides not paying its dues to the CCP has alleged that the lapses both on part of the CCP as well as the contractor are intentional. “As per Clause 8 [of the agreement between Straight Deal Services and the CCP] the licence is in force only for 12 hours on a working day and that parking fees cannot be collected on Sundays and public holidays. But the licencee has been collecting parking fees on all seven days of the week,” Mudras said in his complaint. He also pointed to the fact that while the licencee is eligible for any rebate or refund or modification whatsoever… the CCP vide a resolution has given a relaxation of 50% thus causing huge and unwarranted loss to the public exchequer only to benefit the licencee… despite the fact that an alternative bidder was already available, Mudras said.
“The licencee failed to pay even this reduced amount and the CCP despite full knowledge of the outstanding dues and the challenges in recovering the same failed to initiate recovery procedures,” Mudras said. Other irregularities include charging an earnest money deposit of only `2-lakh which is less than 10% of the when the total contract amount as stipulated by clause 4 of the agreement, failure by the licencee to pay service tax as well as the failure of the CCP to terminate the contract despite no payment of its dues.
“Clause 3 of the agreement states that the licencee has to pay the licence fee in advance by the fifth of every month, but this provision was not enforced and no efforts were made to collect dues till the time they were at a recoverable level so that the outstanding amount accumulated to a staggering `57 lakh.
The CCP has already sent a notice to the contractor demanding its dues as well as an explanation for the delay. Straight Deal Services has paid only its deposit money of `6-lakh and nothing more.
