MMC faces administrative hiccups as new CO remains absent for one week

MARGAO
Strange it may seem, but true that Margao Municipal Council has got a new Chief Officer, but the chamber of the Chief Officer stands locked since the last one week.

That’s not all. Urgent official files are all loaded in Municipal vehicles and transported to Panaji for clearance by the Chief Officer. Sadly, Madgavkars and Fatordekars had to return home disappointed for want of a Chief Officer to hear their grievances. Hearing of cases too has come to a halt with litigants only given dates after adjournments.

Indeed, citizens entering the Portuguese-era Margao Municipal building is heard asking the security personnel manning the entrance with a question whether the Chief Officer is in his chamber. When the citizens receive the standard reply that the Chief Officer is yet to take over the reign of office, they are left with no option than to return home dejected and disappointed.

This is exactly the ground reality at the Margao Municipal Council since the last one week after the government shunted out MMC Chief Officer Gaurish Sankhwalkar to the South Goa Zilla Panchayat as the CEO and brought in his place Social Welfare Director, Ajit Panchwadkar.

Take note, Social Welfare Director Ajit Panchwadkar has been given additional charge of Margao Municipal Council as a result of which he could not visit the Margao Municipality for the last one week after Sankhwalkar’s exit given his preoccupation with his Social Welfare Department and the ongoing Assembly session.

To tide over the administrative problems arising out of the transfer, Chief Officer Panchwadkar has issued instructions to the Municipal officers to send urgent files, both administrative and financial, to his Panaji office for clearance.

While the administrative and financial matters are being handled by Panchwadkar from Panaji, citizens, however, had to go without the opportunity of personally calling on the Chief Officer with their grievances. “Is this the government way of taking the administration to the doorsteps of the people,” questioned a citizen as he made repeated rounds of the Municipality hoping for an audience with the Chief Officer.

He added: “We have no issue if the Chief Officer is running the administration from Panaji. We also understand that the Assembly is in session and he will have to prepare the answers to questions pertaining to his department. But, government should have thought all this before effecting the transfers of the Chief Officers. You cannot put the citizens to hardships.”

In the past, Margao councillors had raised objections to appointment of Chief Officer, holding additional charge of government departments on the ground that it hampers day-to-day administration and hearing of cases.

Mystery shrouds Sankhwalkar’s transfer as govt assigns officer with addl charge

MARGAO: Even as mystery shrouds the sudden transfer of outgoing Margao Municipal Chief Officer Gaurish Sankhwalkar from office, questions are raised whether the government was left with no option than to give additional charge of the MMC CO to Social Welfare Director Ajit Panchwadkar since no senior bureaucrat was ready to work in the civic body?

Indeed, this question is doing the rounds in the corridors of the civic body with reports indicating that the government had shortlisted as many as half a dozen Class One officers to take over the reign of the MMC, but in vain. This has only brought to the fore the same old question that senior bureaucrats do not want to preside over the Margao Municipal administration due to a host of reasons, including the prime reason, political interference by the powers that be.

The moot question, however, remains unanswered – what was the urgency and haste to transfer Gaurish Sankhwalkar from the MMC when the government could not get zero in on an Officer as his successor.

That the government has shunted out Sankhwalkar from office and replacing him by giving additional charge to another officer has only deepened the mystery over the reasons behind the transfer of the outgoing Chief Officer.