MARGAO
Margao Municipal Councillors on Monday raised a pointed question to the Margao civic chief Damu Shirodkar, as they demanded to know whether any funds under the 14th or 15th Finance Commissions will be left for the city’s development with major chunk of the funds going in for garbage management and transportation.
Councillor Ravindra Naik raised the issued at the special meeting of the Council on Monday when he demanded to know whether the Council will go on utilizing funds under the 14th or 15th Commissions for garbage management.
He also sought to know the steps initiated by the Council to recover the crores of rupees of outstanding arrears.
“Margao Municipality is in receipt of crores of rupees as development funds under the 14th and 15th Finance Commissions. But, is the funds utilized to usher in the development of the city or spent only on garbage management’, he said, as he made a plea to the Chairperson to stress on recovery of outstanding arrears so that the revenue recovered can be used for garbage management.
Chairperson Damu Shirodkar pointed out that the Council is bracing up for a major revenue recovery exercise by pointing out that the assessment of the commercial establishment in the city is nearing completion.
“We have found out during the assessment drive in my Aquem ward that around 45-50 per cent of the commercial establishments are operating sans the trade license”, Damu said.
Ex-MMC Chairperson Lyndon Pereira told the Chairperson that he cannot use the 14th Finance Commission funds for the transportation of the garbage from Margao to Cacora, even he urged the Chairperson to take up development in the Municipal wards.
