MARGAO
With the curtains coming down on the Old Market feast fair, Margao Municipal Chairperson Damu Shirodkar on Monday said the civic body was richer by Rs 32 lakh by way of revenue collected during the week-long fair.
Unlike the last fair at the Old Market, which had ended on a controversial note after a Municipal LDC embezzled the revenue collected from the fair amounting to Rs 18 lakh, the Civic Chief said the collection of revenue from the fair was carried out systematically by the officials and staff.
“Unlike last time, we had put a foolproof system in place, thanks to the Margao Municipal Chief Officer Melvyn Vaz. Unlike last time, incumbent Chief Officer Vaz had taken the Council into full confidence to lay down the guidelines on how to go about collecting the revenue and the mode of depositing the same in the municipal treasury,” Shirodkar said.
He added: “We put a system in place wherein revenue collected from the fair was handed over to the cashier on the same day itself. Officials were appointed to monitor the implementation of the system, and the initiative paid dividends.”
The MMC Chairperson made no bones about the fact that the elected Council was not taken into confidence by the then Chief Officer Gaurish Sankhwalkar, which resulted in the controversy over the revenue embezzlement.
In fact, the Civic Chief said the administration headed by the then CO Sankhwalkar had miserably failed to even send a letter to the bank with a request to freeze the account of the suspended MMC employee Yogesh Shetkar.
To a question, Shirodkar said that MMC had set in motion the process to recover the balance amount embezzled by the Municipal employee from his Provident Fund and other leave encashment.
To another question, the MMC Chief, however, admitted there was a shortfall of revenue from the feast fair, primarily because of the exposition of the relics of St. Francis Xavier as the vendors had set up shop at Old Goa this time round.
