It’s a fortnight now since the Margao Municipal Council enforced a 50% hike in garbage fees on honest and sincere tax payers, but the promised exercise to bring hundreds, if not thousands of illegal houses and unauthorised structures under the tax net, seems to have failed to take off till date.
Instead, the authorities have dangled the Geographic Information System (GIS) lollipop before the honest tax payers, apparently to ward off any resentment, and to reassure that the GIS survey will bring the illegal structures under the tax net.
Madgavkars and Fatordekars may want to know from the Margao Municipal Council or the Director of Municipal Administration whether the GIS survey by itself will automatically help to bring all the illegal structures in the commercial capital, including the slums and basties under the tax net overnight.
For an answer, consider this. The Goan had on its January 25 edition highlighted how a GIS survey report compiled by a private agency is gathering dust in the records of the Margao Municipal building for want of implementation. This has once again thrown up the question whether a GIS survey report will bring the illegal houses under the tax net and enrich the Municipal coffers when there’s no political will to implement the survey reports in both letter and spirit.
Even as the GIS lollipop is being offered by the authorities, apparently to silence the innocent tax payers, reeling under the additional burden of 50 per cent hike in garbage fees, questions are being raised in the corridors of the Margao Municipality and outside – what stops the Margao city cathers and the babus from implementing the GIS survey report compiled by the civic body during the last tenure.
Exactly five years have elapsed in March, 2023 since the agency had submitted the GIS report to the civic body, promising to enrich the civic body by crores of rupees by bringing exact number of households and commercial establishments for assessment of house tax and trade licence.
Incumbent Administrative Cum Accounts Officer, Abhay Rane was then heading the Margao Municipal taxation section as the Accounts and Taxation officer. He concedes that the agency had submitted the report in a CD form to the civic body, but has no answer when asked why he and his taxation section had never ever implemented the recommendations made by the GIS report.
In fact, Rane says he will need time to trace the file containing the GIS survey report, indicating that the report was buried deep in the Margao Municipal record books.
As per the agreement inked by the MMC, the agency was given the contract to conduct the GIS survey only in Ward No. 14 of the Municipality, comprising the heart of the commercial capital. And, the results of the survey were there for all to see. In one finding, the survey had pegged the revenue loss to the tune of Rs 3.16 crore by way of house tax in Ward No. 14 alone.
A senior MMC official informed that the GIS survey was first announced by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant in January last when the government unveiled plans to rope in agencies to conduct the survey.
Previous survey reports confined to books due to lack of political will
MARGAO: Will the illegal houses and unauthorised structures spread across the commercial capital ever be brought under the tax net?
Consider this. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Urban Development Minister Vishwajit Rane speak of the Geographic Information System (GIS) as an answer to overcome the loss of revenue from the illegal structures and business establishments.
Leave alone the GIS survey report which has been confined to the Margao municipal record books, a host of surveys conducted by the civic body in the recent past by engaging manpower, have all been gathering dust in the Municipality over the years.
Reason. Most of the illegal houses and structures are spread across the city’s slums and basties which have emerged as vote banks, with sources attributing the delay in implementing the survey reports to the absence of political will to bring the illegal houses under the tax net.
A Municipal official cited the recent instance of the Azad Nagar locality, which came under the High Court scanner over the absence of sewerage connections. Politicians are believed to have put spokes in the process even to issue notices to the inhabitants to apply for the sewerage connections, as a result of which the High Court had to finally intervene and issue directions.
The Goan understands that lakhs of rupees have gone down the drain in conducting the surveys in recent years, including the GIS survey which was initiated in 2017 and completed in 2018. “Whether it is the GIS survey or a manual survey, the findings will just remain on paper if not implemented by the city fathers and the civic babus. Margao is a classic case wherein survey reports on illegal structures have all along been confined to the dusty records,” remarked an official.
