MARGAO
The Margao Municipal Council finds itself in a dilemma over the mysterious disappearance of the Sonsodo road file at the stage of issuing the work order to the eligible contractor.
With the file management system of the civic body tracking the file to the chamber of the Chief Officer, Agnelo Fernandes, before it went missing, questions are raised how the municipality will go about the matter as legal issues have come to the fore.
With the aggrieved contractor taking the civic body to the Court is not ruled out in the event of the tender being scrapped and floated afresh, senior officials in private say a bad precedent will be set by the municipality if it goes for fresh tendering of the work.
The CO is on record saying he had signed the work order before the file was sent to the chamber of the chairperson, a claim vehemently denied by the civic chief Lyndon Pereira.
As the blame game over the missing file continues, questions are being raised in the corridors of the municipality whether the council will go for the reconstruction of the file to mete out justice to the eligible contractor.
The Goan understands that the Rs 36 lakh Sonsodo road repair work was bagged by the contractor who had quoted 20 per cent below.
Inquiries have revealed that the work order was cleared and it was sent to the Chief Officer for his signature before it went missing.
This has only raised questions whether the file went missing just to deny the work to the eligible contractor and to favour a preferred one.
“The MMC will set a bad precedent if it calls for a fresh tender for the Sonsodo road work. For, files will go missing in the Civic body in the future if the favoured contractors of the powers that be fail to bag the works tendered by the municipality”, remarked an official.
Even as officials do not rule out the possibility of the aggrieved contractor dragging the civic body to the court, senior officials said the only way to wriggle out of the situation is to reconstruct the file and award the road work to the eligible contractor.
“The officials should try and get the file reconstructed with details downloaded from the NIC since the civic body had e-tendered the road work,” the official added.
