MARGAO
The Margao Municipal sopo issue rocked the Margao Municipal Council meeting on Thursday, with opposition councillors demanding that the civic body auction the sopo contract without any pre-conditions, including the experience clause, and allot the contract to the highest bidder.
The opposition group has now decided to call for a special meeting of the Council for a threadbare discussion on the sopo contract, including the Council’s decision taken sometime back to waive the sopo contractor from paying to the civic body a whopping Rs 32 lakh sopo fees.
At the Council meeting chaired by Lyndon Pereira, the opposition cornered the Municipal chairperson over the question of imposing a condition that the sopo bidders should have a minimum of three years experience in sopo collection.
The Council meeting witnessed an uproar when the Chief Officer Rohit Kadam read a proposal to increase the sopo price by 10 per cent when the civic body goes for the auction later this month.
Opposition councillors, Sadanand Naik, Camilo Barretto, Ganashyam Shirodkar, Mahesh Amonkar and others were on their feet to demand that the sopo auction should be made open for everyone, saying by imposing three years experience, the civic body is only supporting its favourite contractors to take the auction.
Almost the entire opposition councillors were on their feet, demanding that the chairperson scrap the experience clause. They demanded that the civic body will benefit in terms of sopo revenue only in the event more and more bidders participate in the auction.
The opposition councillors further charged the chairperson and the ruling group for going to the extent of supporting the incumbent sopo contractor by bulldozing with a decision to waive off the sopo payment amounting to a whopping Rs 32 lakh.
Councillor Ganashyam Shirodkar later told the media that he would call for a special meeting of the Council to discuss the sopo issue. “Why is the chairperson in a hurry to impose the three years experience clause? It is clear that he is trying to favour a particular sopo contractor. On completion of one year in office, the chairperson had announced that he had provided corruption-free administration,” Shirodkar said, demanding to know whether inserting an experience clause in the sopo auction is not an act of corruption.
The councillors pated the Chief Officer Rohit Kadam on his back for mopping up Rs 30 lakh revenue from the Purumentachem feast fair this year, with the opposition demanding a Vigilance probe why the revenue was less during the previous years.
