MARGAO
Margao municipal officials and city fathers are keeping their fingers crossed over achieving the projected revenue target from the Old Market Feast Fair.
The Margao Municipal Council (MMC) has set a revenue target of Rs 30-odd lakh from the feast fair, but the revenue has not crossed the Rs 20 lakh figure on Day 1 of the fair.
In fact, the revenue earned by the civic body, since the process was opened for the allocation of stalls on Sunday, is pegged at around Rs 19 lakh. While the civic body earned revenue of Rs 13 lakh on Saturday, the figure marginally increased to Rs 17 lakh on Sunday. Officials, however, pointed out that the civic body earned just Rs 1.94 lakh on Monday.
Civic officials are trying to figure out whether the lower revenue has anything to do with the fair at Old Goa for the exposition of the relics of St Francis Xavier.
Margao municipal chairperson Damu Shirodkar said the MMC is expected to receive revenue of around Rs five lakh from the fair at the SGPDA ground, which is expected to take the total revenue from the fair to Rs 25 lakh.
“The MMC is still keeping its fingers crossed. We hold that hawkers and vendors may come to Margao on the last three days of the fair. We have been told that most of the vendors have set up stalls at Old Goa. There’s a feast at Panaji as well. But we are still hopeful that vendors will come and showcase their products at the Old Market Fair later this week,” Shirodkar said.
The MMC chairperson has issued an order to the municipal workers to inspect the fair site to find out whether any hawkers and vendors have set up their shops without permission from the civic body. “If any vendor is found operating illegally at the fair, the civic body would levy a fine on such hawkers,” he said.
The MMC had lost Rs 18 lakh from the Old Market Fair held in May last year after a municipal LDC, Yogesh Shetkar, embezzled the amount by not depositing the money into the municipal treasury, instead diverting the revenue into his own account.
After remaining in hiding in June last year, the LDC was recently nabbed by the Margao police and has been remanded to seven days' police custody. Municipal officials are pinning their hopes on the police investigation to trace and recover the amount from the accused LDC.
