CANACONA
The Canacona Municipal Council (CMC) has decided to reassess house taxes after resolving the garbage issue in the municipality.
CMC Chairperson Prathana Naik Gaunkar stated this to the opposition councillors, after they demanded that the council takes up the long-pending demand of house tax reassessment in the council meeting on Tuesday.
Responding to the opposition group's demands, Naik Gaunkar said: “Garbage issue is much more important and CMC is making every effort to resolve it and put it at rest to the satisfaction of everyone.”
“The council is also aware about the pending issue of house tax assessment, but we will take up reassessment of house taxes only thereafter,” Naik Gaunkar silenced the opposition councillors.
When opposition councillors sought to know what efforts had been made by the council to solve the garbage issue, when CMC could not even engage additional labourers for garbage, Naik Gaunkar said: “The DMA has put a stringent condition to first act on segregation of garbage properly. Only then will sanction for additional 30 labourers be granted.”
Councillor Dayanand Pagui then took a dig at the ruling councillors by saying “When CMC has collected about Rs 5.82 lakh from tourism stakeholders from municipal coast and other areas, the present council has failed to spend even Rs 1 lakh to maintain cleanliness in these tourists important places.”
It was stated that CMC had become richer by Rs 35.70 lakh by issuing seasonal licences along the municipal council's coast, as against last year's income of Rs 26.12 lakh.
The CMC has also decided to enhance this year's budget by 10% as compared to last year's budget.
CMC Chief Officer Chandrakant Shetkar told the councillors that though some councillors were criticising him for not working, he has kept no job pending and had completed all works within his powers.
When councillors sought to know when the Golden Jubilee Fund of Rs 2 crore would be spent, the chief officer asked the councillors to identify the land and said the Rs 2 crore would be spent for the council's administrative building.
Interestingly, Deputy Chief Minister Francis De Souza in the presence of Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar and then CMC chairperson Ramakanat Naik Gaunkar had laid the foundation stone for an administrative-cum-commercial complex at the same site where present CMC building is located. However, the land does not belong to the CMC and there is also a litigation over adjacent land, which is part of CMC's expansion plans.
