MAPUSA
Coming under intense scrutiny for an alleged act of impropriety, the Chairperson of Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC), Shubhangi Vaigankar, last week quietly withdrew the permission to hand over prime land belonging to Mapusa Comunidade on lease to a charitable trust.
The chairperson has written to the Managing Trustee of the ‘One Change’ a Mapusa-based charitable trust informing it about the decision to cancel the purported extract of the council resolution to hand over the land to the trust.
“It is to state that the said extract of minutes was erroneously issued by oversight, as the matter/issue did not come up either for discussion or decision of the ordinary council meeting held on July 14. As such, the purported ‘extract no 7 (43) from the minutes of the ordinary council meeting held on July 14 in the conference hall of MMC is hereby cancelled and stands null and void,” said Vaigankar, in the letter to the Managing Trustee.
The chairperson has further said that the concerned extract of the minutes should not be used for any purpose in future and directed the Managing Trustee to surrender the original extract of the minutes to the office of the MMC.
Former chairperson Subhash Narvekar is the Managing Trustee of the charitable trust. Incidentally, his son Shashank Narvekar is presently a councillor of ward 5 in Mapusa.
The chairperson of the MMC recently waded into a controversy after the council decided to hand over around 1,990 square metre of land belonging to Mapusa comunidade to a charitable trust in a very suspicious manner.
The Mapusa Comunidade objected to the decision to hand over the land to the trust by keeping the Comunidade in the dark and without following necessary procedures.
According to a member of the managing committee of the Mapusa Comunidade, the decision was in gross violation of the Code of Comunidades as no permission was obtained from the government.
The charitable trust had expressed its interest to develop the land at Dangui Colony into a recreation park for senior citizens and accordingly applied to the council.
Interestingly, the proposal was placed under the business of ‘any other matter’ before an ordinary council meeting held on July 14.
“After brief discussion, the council unanimously resolved to handover the plot no 2 admeasuring 1,990 sq mt of the property bearing Chalta No 1 P T Sheet No 112 to One Change, Mapusa for 30 years,” said an extract of the minutes of council meeting signed by the chairperson.
Surprisingly, the copy of the resolution was handed over to the managing trustee of the charitable trust without confirming the minutes of the ordinary council meeting.
The managing trustee further submitted the copy of the resolution to the Mapusa comunidade which objected to the decision.
“Forget about holding a discussion. The particular matter was not even mentioned at the council meeting. How can the chairperson say the resolution on the matter has been unanimously passed in the council meeting,” said a councilor, requesting anonymity.
Sources in the municipality informed that at least one councilor could be disqualified for voting in favour of the resolution.
