PANAJI
Ex-Mayor of Panaji Surendra Furtado has demanded that the Chief Secretary appoint “an officer, who would not be easily won over by money” to look into the case of the illegal shops at the Panaji market.
Furtado on Friday expressed his displeasure that even after so many years, the CCP was still not receiving its due from the shops in the market.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, Furtado said, “Most of the shops in the Panaji Municipal Market pay nothing for using government property. Had it been private property for which they were not paying rent, they’d have been out within three months. Yet, they get away with not paying rent to the CCP for years on end.”
Calling those in the legal cell of the CCP “mafia” for wrongly advising commissioners, Furtado called on the Chief Secretary to appoint an officer, who would not be easily won over by money, to look into the case of the illegal shops.
In reply to a request for information under the Right to Information Act 2005 filed by a concerned citizen, the Public Information Officer of the CCP has stated on the 5th of June 2018 that “the tenants of the New Municipal Market Phase I & II are not recorded on the system and hence the same is not available.” When a PIL (Writ Petition No 23/2014) had been filed in 2014, no action had been taken then too.
Furtado also alleged that the ex-commissioner Deepak Desai had given a false affidavit in the High Court stating that 22 shops in the market had been sealed and that they were in the custody of the CCP. Furtado went on to say that this statement of the ex-commissioner had misled the court. RTI revealed that no shops were sealed as there was no panchanama or sealing report pertaining to the same.
“90% of the shops in the market are illegal,” emphasised Furtado. “We don’t know who has sold these shops. In the Portuguese times when these shops were leased out, they were to be passed down to blood relatives. Yet, the people who run the shops today are not Goan,” he went on to say.
After meeting the commissioner of the CCP on Friday afternoon, Furtado reported that the Urban Secretary had called for a meeting last week with the CCP, the DMA, and the GSIDC and that a tripartite agreement would be drawn up within a month. After this, a leave and license agreement would be drawn up with the 116 ‘illegal shops.’
