MMC councillors unhappy over devpt work

Vasco: At the last special meeting of the outgoing Mormugao municipal council, some councillors expressed disappointment over the failure to achieve the goals of development during the last five years.
MMC councillor Shekar Khadapkar said, “Looking at recent history we have nothing great to our credit to boast of. Tomorrow when we will go out for campaigning, we will have nothing much to tell our voters.”
While speaking to TOI, Khadapkar said, “The delays in most of the projects have been mainly due to the lapses of the administrative staff.”
Councillor Sharad alias Nitin Chopdekar blamed the local MLA Carlos Almeida for not showing interest in the initiatives taken by the council.
Reacting to this, Khadapkar said, “It has become a habit in our municipality to play blame games. We used to first criticize ex-MLA Philip D'Souza and then Almeida. But the problem is that we have also never shown unity in work.”
Councillor Manish Arolkar referred to the projects like the chief officers bungalow, modern fish market, swimming pool, drainage, internal roads, upgradation of the garbage treatment plant and many others which could not see the light of the day. Vice-chairperson Tara Kerkar requested the chairperson Lavina D'Souza to issue work orders on requests from people so that before the council winds up people get their work done. Kerkar also said that the municipality has to inform the DMA about their unhappiness over the distribution of voters in wards which is not equally distributed.
During the meeting, a heated argument broke out between councillor Pascoal D'Souza and Saifullah Khan. Khan passed comments on the attire of D'Souza who was casually dressed in a T-shirt. Councillor Nany D’Souza, Pascoal’s sister-in-law objected to the comments and demanded an apology from Khan. Though Khan refused to apologize, the chairperson informed the councillors that nobody can make fun of any councillor during the meeting at least not on the clothes they wear. tnn