VASCO
The Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) special council meeting on Friday discussed the sanction of additional grants to Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) for the MMC building renovation works.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, MMC Chairperson Girish Borker said the renovated MMC building was ready and in the final stage.
“We need additional items and equipment in the office of this new building, but this scope was not present in the previous plan and hence, the budget could be hiked by another Rs 4-5 crores for these additional works. We don’t have the funds and we are planning to utilise the 15th finance commission funds for this work,” said Borkar.
“The additional works also include works for the municipal school in the building as well, which does not have proper furniture including chairs and benches. We have our hall but we don’t have a sound system and we are forced to convene council meeting at the Ravindra Bhavan.”
Borkar said the MMC is also planning to have a footpath and garden outside the MMC building which are additional works.
“We have now decided that we will ask the contractor to complete the additional works and offer him the payment through funds from 15th finance commission.
“As of now, this project has been taken through GSUDA at a cost of Rs 9 crore and Vasco MLA Krishna Salkar had also verified what additional equipment are needed for the renovated building,” said Borker.
Councillor Deepak Naik said another topic discussed was on the stray cattle menace.
“The MMC had signed an MoU with the government and an agency which would take stray cattle from here and keep it with them and the funding of this project was to be done by the state government,” said Naik.
“After the agreement, the agency did a great job and took away all stray cattle and the funds for this work have been received. While we were discussing allotment of funds to this agency, a few councillors claimed that some stray cattle had been brought back to Vasco. We have decided to ask the agency to take away all the cattle which are dropped back after which we will release their funds,” said Naik.
Naik also said the MMC would act on those modifying their handcarts to a new structure.
“There are some who had changed the structure of their handcarts and we have now decided to take action, initiate fines and get the structures back to their original form and in the original area,” said Naik.
