MARGAO
Municipal tax payers in particular and citizens in the municipal areas across the State could not pay their taxes or avail online services this week, but for a different reason.
With a main server down, all online services in the Municipal bodies have come to a halt since Monday till Thursday, with Tuesday and Wednesday being intervening holidays.
Inquiries by The Goan with NIC officials have revealed that the main server is down over some power issues at the Secretariat, Porvorim. A senior NIC official told The Goan that the situation may return to normal only after the power issues plaguing the server are resolved.
NIC sources informed that the server was hit by a technical snag on Saturday last after some problem with the UPS system. The fault could not be rectified till date, sources said, in view of the intervening two-day Ganesh festivities on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The senior NIC official, however, hoped that normalcy may return back only on Monday when the offices resume early next week.
Tax payers from Margao who had returned home disappointed on Monday came back to the civic body on Thursday, only to realise that the online system is still not in place.
A citizen told The Goan that he could not pay his house tax after being told that the server is down. “The MMC office staff has no idea when the system would resume since the problem has occurred at the head office,” the citizen added.
A civic official confirmed that they could not accept the house tax payments from citizens on Monday and Thursday since the server was down. “We hope and pray that the server is restored at the earliest since citizens and tax payers had to return home disappointed,” the official added.
The official, however, pointed out that the civic body has on Thursday accepted the payments of services manually, other than house tax and garbage tax, to give relief to the tax payers and citizens who had returned home disappointed on Monday.
