UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: How much tax was collected from owner over the years when 45 families lived in building? Was mandatory one month’s rent collected from the tenants or the owner?
The Dawood building in Margao.
MARGAO
Around 300 voters, 45 families, and numerous rooms — that’s the sheer scale the fire-ravaged Dawood building hosted over the years before it was engulfed by an inferno in the middle of last week.
Even as the beleaguered residents, mostly migrants, anxiously await the structural stability test ordered by the authorities, which would shed light whether the three-storeyed building is safe or unsafe for human habitation, a host of unanswered questions have come to stare at the local civic body, the Margao Municipal Council, councillors and the Municipal babus post-fire incident.
In fact, the civic body need to answer oft-repeated questions vis-à-vis the Dawood building housing so many voters and tenants, who have been putting up in the decades-old building, over the last 5-6 decades. One, how much house tax is being collected by the Margao Municipal Council from the building owner annually? If the owner had leased out the rooms in the building to dozens of families, did the civic body, the taxation section, make any efforts to collect the mandatory one month’s rent from the owner or the tenants as the case may be?
What was the modus operandi adopted by the Margao Municipal Council in respect of the collection of waste generated from Dawood building? If the owner was paying the annual house tax, was he the lone person making the payments for the sanitation charges? Or, did the Margao Municipal Council put in place separate arrangements for garbage collection from the tenants upon the payment of sanitation fees? Or, was the waste generated in the building dumped along the railway tracks and later disposed of by burning? For, local residents claim they frequently come across waste burning along the railway tracks near the building.
Another contentious question that may come to haunt the Margao Municipal technical section and the engineers is whether the number of floors and the dozens of rooms inside the building conform to the Municipal rules and building norms. Officials inspecting the ill-fated building after the fire incident claimed that they had come across small rooms inside the building, throwing up a question whether the Margao Municipal engineers had at any time inspected the building to certify that the rooms and internal changes conformed to the established rules.
Another pertinent question that did the rounds in the corridors of the Margao Municipal Council was how did the tenants obtain the electricity and water connections – whether the owner had issued the NOCs to obtain these connections or whether the Margao Municipal Council had issued the NOCs under the Public Health Act? In the event the MMC did issue NOCs under the Public Health Act, was any attempt made by the Municipal engineers to check the ground reality inside the building, leave alone the structural stability of the decades-old structure.
When The Goan called up Margao Municipal Chairperson Damu Shirodkar to shed light on questions over house tax, sanitation fees, etc paid by the occupants of Dawood building, he said the documents need to be checked and verified about the ground reality. “I can ask the taxation section to check the records on the question of payment of house tax, sanitation fees and the one month rent by the owner. I will also check with the technical section whether rooms leased out inside the building conform to the Municipal rules,” Damu added.
Fire dept seeks docs as residents claim losses running into lakhs
MARGAO: Beleaguered residents of Dawood building have claimed they have suffered losses running into lakhs of rupees.
The Margao fire brigade, however, has told the residents to submit the claims with proper documents, including Aadhaar Card number, etc.
Fire Officer Gill D’Souza informed that residents had approached the fire services with claims they have lost property worth lakhs of rupees. “One of the affected residents claimed that he has lost good worth over Rs 3 lakh. Others also made similar claims. We have requested the residents to file claims with proper documents,” Gill said.
Mystery shrouds building inferno as incident raises questions
MARGAO: Last week’s massive fire at the Dawood building is mired in mystery with neither the Fire brigade nor the Electricity Department shedding light on the cause behind the inferno.
When The Goan tried to seek details from the Fire Services on the reasons behind the fire, an officer said the Margao fire brigade has written to the Margao police to ascertain whether the fire incident is an act of arson or otherwise. The fire brigade has also requested the Electricity Department to ascertain the cause behind the fire with questions raised whether the fire was due to short circuit or otherwise.
After the fire incident, Margao Fire Officer Gill D’Souza had raised a pertinent question how come the fire had occurred end to end, whether there’s no power supply on the top floor of the building.
“When we reached the building after being informed at around 2.42 pm, we saw the fire at the building’s end to end. That’s the reason why the fire services has written to the police and Electricity Department to ascertain the cause of the fire or whether it was arson since there was no power connection on the top floor,” Gill said.
