MARGAO
Mystery shrouds the second postponement of the Margao Municipal Council’s Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) to fill up the vacant post of Head Clerk.
While the municipal office has taken the plea that the DPC had to be postponed for want of proper documentation, including the confidential reports of the candidates, sources pointed out that the meeting convened in the month of April last did not fill up the vacant post of head clerk.
The DPC of the Margao Municipal Council was called on April 28 last to fill up the post of Head clerk and two market inspectors. However, sources said an SOS via e-mail was sent to the civic body to postpone the DPC. And, when the DPC finally took place, it only filled up the two posts of market inspectors and left out the head clerk.
Incidentally, when the DMA office called up the DPC again on November 7, hopes were raised that the post will be finally filled up, which has been lying vacant since June 1, 2021, since the retirement of then Head Clerk Priya Naik.
What’s interesting to note is that the Tribal Welfare Department had put a remark on the reservation roaster, recommending filling up the post as a top priority and clearing the backlog in favour of the eligible ST candidate.
In this context, the DPC held on Monday has come under sharp focus, with questions raised in the corridors of the civic body and outside whether the ST candidate will finally get the post as per the remark put up by the Tribal Welfare Department on the reservation roaster.
Even as officials took the plea that the DPC could not fill up the post for want of documentation, questions are being raised about how the office did not go prepared for the meeting well or whether there was another attempt to scuttle the DPC a la the April 28 meeting.
Meanwhile, BJP-backed Margao Municipal councillor Camilo Baretto, hailing from the ST community, has lamented that the DPC could not fill up the vacant post of head clerk and mete out justice to the ST candidate. Camilo has wondered why the DPC meeting on the Head clerk post is being postponed just because the post is going for the ST candidate, promising to take up the matter with Margao MLA Digambar Kamat as well as the municipal chairperson.
