MARGAO
It's now a year since the SGPDA had floated a e-tender amounting to a whopping Rs 3.88 crore for the collection of sopo fee collection from the wholesale fish market.
The PDA, however, continues to collect the sopo fees departmentally, but for a different reason. When the e-tender was floated in August, 2023, bidders had raised queries over the contentious clause that the bidder should have 10 year experience in the fishing business, on the ground the business of fishing experience in no way connected to the sopo fee collection.
Subsequently, the PDA endorsed the objections raised by the bidders at the pre-bid meeting and resolved to send the objection to the Town and Country Planning department for necessary amendments.
Questions are raised over the delay by the TCP in tweaking the contentious clause and give a green signal to the PDA to go ahead with the e-tender minus the fishing business experience. Sources in the PDA informed that the TCP later decided to tweak the controversial clause, but a fresh e-tender is still a far cry.
This despite the directions issued by the High Court dated 27th September, 2021 in a writ petition, where a two-judge Bench had categorically stated: “We feel that not just floating of tenders, but the entire process of appointing the contractor through the tender must be completed within three months from today”.
TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane has assured in the just concluded Assembly session that the wholesale fish market sopo tender will be floated within two months. The announcement has been endorsed by the SGPDA at the 106th Authority meeting of the PDA chaired by MLA Krishna Salkar last week, throwing up a moot question “ will the PDA finally appoint a contractor to collect the sopo fees in the wholesale fish market within the next two months or will the saga continue without any end.
