the goan I network
PANAJI
The Goa Cabinet in its meeting on Wednesday decided to relax educational qualification from graduation to 12th standard pass or diploma holder for appointments to the post of officer on special duty (OSD) to ministers.
“Lowering the educational qualification will help in appointment of like-minded officers on special duty (OSD) to ministers,” said Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday after the cabinet meeting.
Sawant said that the decision to lower the education criteria was cleared on the special request of three cabinet ministers, namely Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar, Revenue Minister Jennifer Monserrate and Ports Minister Michael Lobo.
It may be recalled that ministers were earlier allowed to appoint two officers on special duty with minimum graduation as a qualification. This officer can be a normal person or existing government servant and he remains on duty till position holding minister wants him in that position.
As per information received from sources the decision has been taken after the proposal of the OSDs of Revenue Minister Jennifer Monserrate , Deputy Chief Minister Chandrakant Kavlekar and Rural Development Minister Michael Lobo came before for consideration. The two applicants were engineering diploma holders and one is an undergraduate.
“The cabinet also gave post-facto approval to around Rs 10.68 lakh spent by the Sports Authority of Goa for organising secondary and higher-secondary level sports tournaments in the 10 talukas,” informed Sawant.
These tournaments were held in December 2018.
The decision to de-reserve 62 posts of police constables reserved for home guards has also been taken in the cabinet. The financial implication of this decision is around Rs 22.77 lakh.
This is done in order to rectify the anomaly that occurred while filling police constable (Armed Police) posts in the year 2006 on ad-hoc basis.
These constables’ seniority list will be revised and they will get consequential benefits with retrospective effect.
It may recalled that these constables were regularised in 2013, but they challenged the regularisation as they were losing seniority by 7 years and were deprived of first financial upgradation under modified assured career progression scheme. These constables challenged the regularisation in the High Court which in April 2019 ordered regularisation of these constables from the date they were appointed.
