representative image Panaji: The Panaji City Corporation ,CCPNotice given to 457 tenants People from the city’s Municipal Corporation market who allegedly defaulted in payment of rent for their shops. The civic body directed these tenants to submit their rent receipts and trade licenses to validate the leasehold licensee status for their respective shops.
According to the directive issued by CCP Commissioner Klein Madeira, failure to comply with these instructions within seven days will result in eviction proceedings. Goa Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1988.
A senior CCP official said notices were issued to the occupants of shops in Municipal Market Phase I and II in 2003 and 2007 respectively, whose names appear in the records of the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation, because CCP owned the market. There is lack of documents of tenants.
The official said that the tenants of the municipal market continued to cause loss of revenue worth crores of rupees to the corporation. He said that in 2023 CCP decided to sign release and license agreements with tenants; However, he refused and instead showed his interest in signing the lease agreement.
The official said the CCP continued to use public funds to maintain the market complex, while not receiving any rental income or fees from the occupants.
“This situation persists because there is no formal agreement between the corporation and the tenants,” he said.
Bento Lorena, chairperson of CCP’s market committee, said, “Notices would have been given to market tenants by the commissioner only after taking legal opinion. CCP has not received any rent from tenants since 2003. Tenants find reasons not to sign agreements with CCP.
The Panaji Municipal Market Tenant Association said that the market tenants were ready to sign the lease agreement and claimed that the CCP agreed. “When they agreed to sign the lease agreement, what was the need to give notice? We have been doing business in Panaji for generations. You cannot evict us. We will take legal opinion and decide what needs to be done,” said one of the tenants.
Former mayor Surendra Furtado welcomed the CCP’s decision to initiate action against the market tenants. “During my tenure as mayor we had appointed ND Aggarwal to investigate illegal occupation of shops, where he had said that 90 per cent of the shops were illegal. Whenever we tried to take any action, the tenants would run to the local MLA. I hope the action will not be derailed again as market tenants run to the MLA,” he said.
Furtado said CCP should collect rent from all defaulters because they have benefited from running businesses there. A senior CCP official said a section of market tenants have written a letter to the CCP seeking time to respond to the notice.
