the goan I network
MARGAO
Did the fear of the rejection of the revised rate of Rs 25,000 per week towards the treatment of the waste coupled with the High Court’s last week directions barring open dumping at Sonsodo weigh heavily on the civic body before suo moto agreeing to extend the present arrangement of payment at Sonsodo?
MMC legal counsel, Adv S Padiyar, denied that the MMC had opted for the status quo out of fear of any negative fall out of the council decision. He, however, was frank in admitting that the civic body did not use any scientific method to arrive at the figure of Rs 25,000 per week.
Moreover, Adv Padiyar said further that the MMC would now work out the figure that goes for waste treatment, saying that the civic body also did not receive the figures of operational cost from Fomento.
Adv Padiyar went into a huddle with the councillors outside the courtroom with the permission of the judge, ostensibly to discuss the ramification of the council resolution which had resolved to pay only Rs 25,000 per week to Fomento for treatment of daily waste, which roughly works out Rs 3,500 per day.
MMC Chairperson Babita Prabhudesdai and councilors Rupesh Mahatme, Ketan Kurtarkar, Jaffar Budhani, Lyndon Pereira, Avinash Shirodkar, besides Chief Officer Sidhivinayak Naik, municipal engineer, Manoj Arsekar, municipal lawyer, Adv Maria Mesquita went into a huddle with legal counsel Adv S Padiyar outside the courtroom for around 10-15 minutes, before Adv Padiyar returned inside and suo moto agreed for the continuance of the existing arrangement of payment to Fomento.
Sources in the know said Adv Padiyar made the city fathers to see reason as the figure of Rs 25,000 worked out by the MMC was worked out without application of norms.
