MARGAO
Why do files go missing from the Margao Municipal Council? Is there a file tracking system in place at the A Class municipal body? If so, how do the files mysteriously go missing from the record books of the civic body?
Margao Municipality is one of the civic bodies which has in place a file management system, thanks to former Chief Officer Navin L, IAS, who had reportedly introduced the mechanism to keep track of the movement of the files, especially files in respect of the Municipal technical section, which has in recent years come under the scanner of citizens.
Welcome to the Margao Municipal Council, where one comes across a help-desk right at the entrance to the Municipal building manned by an official, where one can inward the correspondence, including files for construction licenses, renewals, occupancy certificates, tendered works et al.
Here, the trained official manning the help desk handles the file management system, which keeps track of the movement of the file, right from the technical section to the office of the Chief Officer. This brings to the fore the moot question of how can files still go missing despite the file management system in place at the municipality.
Following the uproar witnessed in the municipality at the council meeting, it has now been revealed that certain construction and other files have been lying pending with one of the engineers. The file management system shows that the movement of these files had stopped at the cabin of a particular engineer, indicating these files were stuck up at the doorsteps of the engineer.
Sources in the know say that all files, whose details are entered in the file management system cannot go missing unless they bypass the system in place.
Take the case of the missing Sonsodo shed file. The file management system shows that the file was stuck up at the cabin of an engineer, only to surface later following the uproar at the council meeting.
“The file management system keeps track of all correspondence entered in the civic body, especially concerning the technical section. The file will come under the file management system scanner only if the correspondence is not entered in the system,” remarked an official.
