Mormugao council to crack down on defaulters to recover 50cr arrears

Vasco: Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) has decided to collect a whopping outstanding dues of over Rs 50 crore from various installations, business establishments and shopkeepers in order to strengthen its financial position.The Class ‘A’ Mormugao municipality has been struggling for the last several years to collect long-pending dues from major installations, establishments and shopkeepers. However, the municipality has succeeded in collecting around Rs 15 crore from Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) which helped in clearing the pending arrears of its retired employees.The civic body’s financial position has worsened over the last several years, making it difficult to disburse salaries to its nearly 300 employees.“We are struggling hard to collect long-pending dues from vital installations and establishments, including central and state govt offices. The petroleum agencies, those PSUs, have also miserably failed to pay their arrears. Recently, municipal authorities have issued a notice to IOCL to pay their dues, failing which they have been warned of shutdown of operations and eviction from municipal land,” MMC chairperson Girish Borkar said.

“MMC has its own buildings. Most of these buildings are given on rent to run shops and establishments. The rent payable by our lessees has not been paid yet. Despite issuing notices and reminders, they have failed to clear their arrears,” said Borkar.There are complaints from occupants housed in municipal properties that the buildings are very old and are lying in a dilapidated state.“We have decided to hire students from Goa College of Engineering to assess our building structures.

As the municipal authorities have decided to demolish age-old buildings which are unsafe for human occupation, efforts are on to rebuild these buildings for the safety of occupants and the general public,” said Borkar.He further disclosed that, “The council is putting in all-out efforts to recover the outstanding amount from all major installations and establishments. We will ensure that the outstanding amount is recovered within the current financial year by the end of March 2026. Our chief officer, Siddhivinayak Naik, has decided to take harsh steps to recover dues at the earliest so that these funds can be used for several purposes.

As we are facing a hard time disbursing salaries to our employees, the recovered dues will be used during this crisis,” Borkar added.