PANAJI
Director of Green Goa Works, Claude Alvares has sought to play down the disqualification of several directors of the company Green Goa Works while calling the disqualification ‘unfortunate.'
"It is unfortunate that this small, environmentally active company which mainly does services relating to sewage and garbage, and which does not pay out any profits to any individual or to its directors, has been lumped with companies that are not Section-25 companies or worse, shell companies," Alvares said.
The Home Ministry has listed the disqualification of the directors of Green Goa Works including Wendell Rodricks, Dean D'Cruz, Idrees Haaziq, Claude Alvares and others.
"This sudden disqualification is quite unfortunate since the Green Goa Works is a non-profit company registered under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956. It was not given any hearing in the matter before such drastic action was taken or being contemplated," Director Alvares said in a statement released to the media.
The directors of Green Goa Works were among 2376 directors of companies in Goa have been similarly disqualified. He said, he believes that the decision could have been presumably done "because the company did not upload its annual returns on time."
"This situation is being remedied and the company expects to upload its annual returns and be compliant this week. The company is trying to find out why this has occurred, since the annual returns have been consistently maintained ever since the company was started several years ago," Alvares said.
Alvares' Green Goa Works has run the SGPDA market for nearly seven years and is involved in sewage and garbage issues, building composting plants for companies.
"We have been helping Goa to keep its environment clean to the best of its abilities -- which are indeed rather small, considering the annual turnover of the company does not exceed Rs 20 lakh annually, most of it going to pay the workers at the SGPDA market," Alvares said.
The company operates a successful and popular organic store at Letitia Bldg at Khorlim, Mapusa which readers are welcome to visit.
"None of the directors take any salary for doing service on the BoD. The company cannot pay out any dividend to Directors and any income accruing to the company gets ploughed back into the company to expand its work. The company has also paid taxes in some years," Alvares said.
