Chief officer issues diktat to crack whip on gambling
MARGAO
After "hafta", matka bookies accepting bets along the roadsides and footpaths in the commercial capital will now have to pay "sopo" fees to the Margao Municipal Council.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of matka bookies, employed by matka kingpins, accept bets across the commercial capital along the lanes and by-lanes with gambling tables after paying the regular "hafta" to the law-enforcing agencies.
Now, the Margao Municipal administration has decided that either the bookies pay the sopo fees to the sopo contractor or risk the attachment of the gambling tables by the Municipal market inspectors.
In fact, sources in the Margao Municipality have informed that Chief Officer Melvyn Vaz has issued a diktat to the Margao inspectors to crack the whip against the bookies running gambling operations across the city, to either pay the sopo or face closure.
Sources in the MMC informed that the decision to charge matka bookies with sopo fees was made since the bookies come every day to their respective places in the city to conduct gambling activity. A senior official further informed that if the matka business is being carried out by paying haftas to the law-enforcing agencies, there is nothing wrong with charging sopo fees on the activity.
Questions, however, are being raised in certain quarters as to whether the Municipality will maintain any checks on the gambling activity, as there is every possibility that the bookies will openly accept matka bets right on the footpaths and passages, claiming that they are paying sopo fees. “We hope matka gambling, though bustling in the city underground, with bookies accepting bets in every nook and corner of the city, is not carried out openly after the levying of sopo fees,” remarked a citizen.
The MMC has allotted the sopo contract for a whopping Rs 85 lakh, excluding GST, for one year to a contractor. Collection of sopo fees in the city had kicked up a row after the contractor started collecting sopo from fish vendors doing business outside the wholesale fish market, prompting the SGPDA to lodge a police complaint.
At the Margao Municipal Council, Goa Forward Party-backed Councillors had alleged at the Margao Municipal Council meeting that the contractor has been levying sopo fees even on gaddas operating with a trade licence.
