New Chief Officer faces uphill task to put MMC on track

the goan I networkrMARGAO r A report. rrMunicipal Administration: The biggest challenge before the new Chief Officer to tone up the Municipal administration and make it responsive to the citizens. That all is not well in the civic body on the administrative front became clear when the new Chief Officer stepped in the Municipal building, only to find many employees absent from their work place. That’s not all. Questions are raised in the corridors of the civic body whether the new Chief Officer will crack a whip against a couple of municipal employees who are known habitual late comers or are found loitering in the restaurants during office hours. The CCTV cameras, installed and repaired to bring the erring employees on the scanner, lie defunct for reasons best known to the City Fathers and the Babus. rrEncroachments: Encroachments on the city footpaths, pavements and the markets is literally the order of the day in the commercial capital. Blame it on political interference or otherwise, attempts by Agnelo’s predecessors to crack a whip against the encroachers had come a cropper in the past. In fact, successive Chief Officer’s had miserably failed to clear the footpaths and pavements from the encroachers. rrAccessibility: One question doing the rounds in the corridors of the civic body is the availability of the new Chief Officer to attend to the public given that he is holding additional charge as the district Additional Collector. Agnelo had assumed office on Friday last, but has only made his token presence in the civic body till date. Given that he is holding the post of Additional Collector-I in the district Collectorate, it remains to be seen how he would adjust himself in the Collectorate and also make time to attend to the public in the civic body.