MARGAO
Why is the Margao Municipal Council sleeping over the huge government grants running into crores of rupees when rules mandate return of the grants back to the municipal administration if the money is unutilised in a
financial year?
And, why is the Director of Municipal Administration silent in forcing the Margao civic body to return back the grants to the government treasury and utilise the same for other development works?
Strange it may seem, that government grants to the tune of Rs 16.44 crore has been lying unutilised by the Margao civic body, a report compiled by the State Audit
has revealed.
A glance at the statistics compiled by the state audit shows that while the civic body has received a total grant of Rs 27.56 crore up to the financial year 2013-14, the municipality has managed to spent only Rs 11.12 crore, with the unutilised grants amounting to a whopping
Rs 16.44 crore.
Major grants received by the municipality which has remained idle include grants sanctioned for the civic body on the solid waste management head. Around Rs five crore grant sanctioned for the civic body to tackle the solid waste management problem is lying unspent in
the municipality.
Another major grant which remains unutilised is the one time golden jubilee grant amounting to Rs three crore. The audit report shows that while the municipality has claimed to have spent around Rs 31.61 lakh from this grant, the unutilised grant on this head is pegged at
Rs 2.68 crore.
“This is a huge outstanding balance of grant,” the audit report said, while observing that at the time of sanctioning the grants, it is clearly mentioned in the order that grants sanctioned should be utilised within that particular year and the balance grants returned or surrendered to the sanctioning authority. “In spite of this, the Director of Municipal Administration has continuously sanctioned year wise grants to the council. As such, crores of funds stand blocked which otherwise would have been utilised for other developmental works,” the Audit
report stated.
When The Goan called up the Director of Municipal Administration, J Ashok Kumar to shed light on the failure of the Margao Municipal Council to utilize the sanctioned grants as well as to refund the grants back to the government, he made it clear that strict instructions have been issued to the Civic bodies either to utilize the grants or return the money back to the government. “During my meetings with the municipal officers, I have point blank pointed out that no civic body can keep the government grants idle. If they cannot utilize the grant, they should return back to the government or else the government will withhold sanction of grants in the future”, he asserted.
Margao Municipal engineer, Surendra Gaonkar, however, defended the non-utilization of the government grants pegged by the State Audit to Rs 16. 44 crore. “A major chunk of these unutilized grants relates to funds received for solid waste management. The municipality has still not made payments for the company roped in to set up the solid waste management. We will have to pay to the company one day or the other”, he said.
Secondly, he pointed out that the municipality will utilized the golden jubilee grant for the multi-stored pay-parking project, adding that the civic body has sought approval from the government to utilized a portion of the unutilized grant to fund the project.
