New twist: SGPDA withdraws sopo fees collection contract

The SGPDA till late Wednesday evening was in the process of designating the technical officials to put a system in place for the collection of the sopo fees from the wholesale fish market departmentally.

Though the order issued by SGDPA member Ranjit Borkar did not cite any reason for the sudden withdrawal of the order issued to the contractor, Milagres, sources said the latest development comes against the backdrop of the hearing of the matter in the High Court on Wednesday.

Sources in the know informed that the petitioner Margao wholesale fish market association reportedly drew the attention of the High Court to the appointment of Milagres Fernandes as the sopo collection contractor on December 29 when the court had earlier ordered that there’s no question of continuing with the contractor to collect the fees after December 27.

The matter will come up for hearing again on Thursday, wherein the SGPDA will produce the order issued by Member Secretary Ranjit Borkar withdrawing contractor Milagres Fernandes from the sopo collection.

Officials in the know informed that the SGPDA in the past had affected the work of collecting the fees departmentally without engaging private staff. It is, however, unclear how the SGDPA will go about engaging workers to assist the PDA in the collection of the sopo fees without invited quotations from prospective labour contractors.

The SGDPA had on December 29 approved the application of Milagres Fernandes to collect the sopo fees from the wholesale fish market for Rs 15.50 lakh after he edged out the Margao wholesale fish market association, which had quoted Rs 15 lakh to carry out the same work.

In fact, awarding the contract to Milagres had triggered an uproar after the Margao Wholesale fish market association had claimed that the PDA did not consider its offer of Rs 17 lakh to collect the sopo fees.