MARGAO
But, more than the bidders, questions are doing the rounds in the corridors of the civic body whether the Municipal Council, which as a large army of workers, cannot collect the stall fees departmentally as was being done by the municipality over the years.
The auction will start at an upset price of Rs 13.5 lakh, around Rs 50,000 more than the bid finalized by the civic body last year, but the moot question remains unanswered why the Municipality could not utilize its workforce to collect the fees and enrich its coffers.
The figure amounting to Rs 13.5 lakh appears attractive, but taking into account that the Civic body is required to pay for the space to the SGPDA, which would out nearly half the amount, the Municipality may end up in earning a revenue much below the Rs 10 lakh figure mark. Given the bitter past experience when vendors had complained of fleecing and extortion by unscrupulous element, questions are raised why MMC thought of doing away with the exercise of departmental collection of fees from stall owners.
