Photo caption.
Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza inaugurating the parking project at Cuncolim, on Tuesday. Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
Expressing concern over the failure of the municipal bodies in toning up their revenue recovery systems, Urban Development Minister Francis D'Souza on Tuesday favoured a stop to development grants to the civic bodies till they utilise the grants and recover the outstanding revenues.
D’Souza further called for setting up of the monitoring panels at the municipal level to maintain a check on the quality of works, even as he assured to keep on hold payments to the contractor who had executed work on the parking project in Cuncolim.
Speaking to the media after inaugurating the walking track and children’s park, besides a parking project in Cuncolim on Tuesday, D’Souza said the civic bodies should devise a mechanism wherein the municipalities fully utilise the infrastructural projects to generate revenue for the maintenance of the projects. “The government does not sanction grants for the maintenance of projects. The municipalities should utilise the infrastructural projects to generate revenue to fund the maintenance of the projects," he said.
He said the infrastructure projects should be tapped to generate revenue, adding that the council can be run with the revenue generated by way of taxes. “Apart from the infrastructure projects, the council should also tap the CSR to fund the maintenance work," he added.
Saying that the municipal bodies at Panaji, Vasco and Margao have huge untapped resources, he, however, lamented that the recovery of revenue in these municipal bodies is not satisfactory. “These municipal bodies can even give the money to the government, but they have no system in place to recover the taxes. They have no recovery system in place. You should raise demand notices and attach the properties of the tax defaulters, but the municipal bodies do not follow the system," he said, while asserting that the government will have no option than to stop the development grants till the municipal bodies utilise the sanctioned grants and effect the recoveries.
