With the December 8 Old market feast fair promising to generate huge revenue for the Margao Municipal Council (MMC), the Shadow Council for Margao (SCM) has warned that any attempt to siphon off Municipal revenues generated from the fair stalls shall be seriously viewed, and all measures shall be taken to ensure recovery, from those responsible.
Given that the MMC’s coffers were enriched by over Rs 25 lakh at the Purumentachem feast fair at the Old market in June last, sources say the revenue can cross the Rs 40-lakh figure this year considering that the civic body is collecting the sopo fees departmentally this time round.
SCM Convener Savio Coutinho said the Shadow Council for Margao consistently raised the loss of revenue from the fair, after which the council managed to mop up a whooping revenue of over Rs 25 lakhs during the fair of May 2022.
“Though we are of the firm opinion that, the actual collection could be much more, we now learn that that there are grandiose plans being worked out by some present and ex-public representatives, to “feast” upon the revenue collection from the stalls allotted at the fair, Coutinho revealed.
He added: “We wish to caution MMC Chief Officer Manuel Barreto, not to fall prey to any propositions from these representatives, as eventually it will be the Chief Officer who will be answerable in case of loss of revenue”.
The SCM firmly demanded that the Chief Officer assigns responsibility to a team, within the MMC officials, to monitor the revenue collection, with the last Feast revenue as a benchmark.
“The revenue collection has to be more than the previous year, as it has been a normal trend that the December fair has always brought in more vendors/stalls,” Coutinho said.
He also said the SCM has received information that the council is likely to be subjected into payment of lakhs of rupees towards ground use charges to the SGPDA, and thereafter the same SGPDA ground, will be unofficially allotted to councilors and ex-councilors to collect fees from the vendors/stall owners, which revenue is unlikely to be deposited into the Municipal treasury, Coutinho charged.
