MARGAO
If Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had moved a bill in the winter session of the Goa Legislative Assembly to penalize landlords for leasing out their premises without verification of tenants, his fears do not seem to be totally misplaced.
Statistics compiled by the South Goa police reveal that only 32,675 tenant verification forms were filled by the police during the year 2017. And, the number of reports dispatched by the police under section 188 of the IPC for the same year is put at only 741, indicating that the tenant verification exercise has not achieved the desired objective last year.
A glance at the statistics shows that the tenant verification exercise failed to make a mark in Margao despite the areas falling under its jurisdiction, including Margao town and areas located on its outskirts such as Navelim, Aquem-Baixo, Telaulim and Dramapur, play host to a large number of migrant tenants.
Neighbouring Maina-Curtorim police station also put up a lackluster performance in filling up tenant verification forms, with statistics revealing that only 1,713 forms were filled up last year.
Comparatively, the police stations at Verna, Colva and Ponda showed progress, with Verna police station filling up around 9052 forms followed by the Colva police station (5364 forms) having jurisdiction over Salcete's coastal belt and Ponda police station, which had managed to fill up around 5353 forms last year.
Vasco police station (2566), Curchorem (1987) and Sanguem (1114) were the other police stations which barely managed to cross the thousand figure mark in 2017.
