MARGAO
Margao Municipal Council administration’s controversial norm of giving extensions for contracts relating to garbage collection, sopo fees collection and security agency came under fire from City Fathers as they insisted on codal formalities to rope in the eligible contractors to execute the work.
Blame it on lethargy or simply pressure from vested political interests, the MMC administration was literally exposed at the Council’s special meeting held on Friday, with councillors questioning the extensions of contracts when the contracts ought to have been put in place via tenders.
The special meeting discussed the issue of granting extensions for three important contracts, the multi-crore door-to-door waste collection contract, the sopo fees collection contract and the extension for the security agency, on the plea that it will take time for the civic body to comply with the codal formalities.
As it turned out, however, the MMC administration was caught on the wrong foot as it became evident that all the three contracts already had got extensions from the civic body for reasons best known to the Municipal administration.
At the end of the meeting, the door-to-door waste collection contract and the security agency contract got the nod of the Council for extension on the plea that garbage collection and security services may collapse if the contracts are not extended by a couple of months.
Only the sopo fee collection contract has been kept in abeyance by the Chairperson Lyndon Pereira due to disagreement amongst the councillors on issues to sopo collection.
When the door-to-door waste collection contact came in for discussion, councillors Ganashyam Shirodkar, Damu Shirodkar and Shagun Naik were on their feet to demand explanation from the Chief Officer Rohit Kadam why his office had failed to issue an order to the two waste collection agencies after the Council had resolved to give two-month extension for the agencies.
Pointing out the good work put in by the waste collection agencies, Ganashyam questioned the Chief Officer the reason for the delay in issuing the order for extension of the contract for two months. The Chief Officer, however, pointed out that he wanted to ensure that due diligence was followed by his office in view of a complaint lodged with the Vigilance on the matter. He, however, promised the Council that he would issue the order by Friday evening, with a further promise to release the payments at the earliest.
The proposal to extend security service for three months triggered uproar after realisation dawned on the City Fathers that the security was given the extension by the civic body without tender.
That’s not all. When the councillors realised that the Municipality is paying Rs 4 lakh per month, they demanded to know the hours put in by the security guards and the number of locations they are posted in the city. Finally, the Council gave the nod for the security agency for three months after the Chief Officer pointed out that it is not possible to complete the tender formalities within a month’s time.
