the goan I network
PANAJI
In a bid to get a grip of the administration he heads, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday sought to emulate his mentor and predecessor the late Manohar Parrikar and held his first ‘janata durbar’ at the Secretariat where he resolved to crack the whip against under-performing babus.
“I want to warn government officers and staff that procrastination and keeping work of the public unnecessarily pending will not be tolerated,” Sawant told the media, after the nearly 3-hour-long session where over a hundred people from across the State met him and discussed their grievances with prior appointments.
Sawant said, complaints from the people who met him ranged from issues with police department, mamlatdar offices, matters pertaining to panchayats and civic bodies besides other offices of his administration across the State.
Untested in administrative matters at the government level, Sawant who took over as chief minister two-and-half months ago, has thus far had little time in office to tackle the challenge of re-invigorating the bureaucracy after the long hiatus of sorts it has had in the 12 months of Parrikar’s debilitating illness leading to his death in mid-March.
In the two-odd months Sawant has been in office since then, his government functioned with bare minimum powers owing to the Model Code of Conduct being in force during the recently held Lok Sabha elections and the Assembly bye-polls.
Prior to taking over as chief minister, Sawant who is in his second term as a legislator, never held any cabinet position and only served as the Speaker of Goa legislative assembly since 2017.
Sawant however said he will soon be issuing general instructions to the administration from top to bottom warning that his government will not tolerate unwarranted delays by officials in executing public transactions.
“We are committed to deliver good governance, especially to the last man in society,” Sawant said, adding that he will continue with the late Parrikar’s trait of holding such ‘durbars’ at least once a month where common people can come up with the problems they are facing in dealing with the administration.
Oddly, the ‘durbar’ held between 11 am and 2 pm on Thursday was not attended by any of the bureaucrats barring those attached to the Chief Minister’s Office.
With Thursday’s ‘durbar’, Sawant who had overtly committed to taking forward the legacy of Parrikar when he took office, has demonstrated his willingness to imitate his former mentor’s style. Whether the Chief Minister will succeed in replicating the late CM’s knack of ridding the bureaucracy of red-tapism and obstinacy and streamline the administration is a question which will beg answers in the coming months of his
tenure.
Task force to chart govt policy on pvt sector employment
PANAJI: Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte will head a task force which will draft the State’s policy on employment in the private sector. Besides Khaunte and some bureaucrats from the Industries and Labour ministries, the task force also has representatives from the local industry and service sectors besides trade union leaders.
The State’s labour commissioner will be the member secretary of the task force which will frame the policy by which Goa’s private sector will be guided for recruitment.
Savio Messias from the hospitality sector, Blaise Costabir and Shekar Sardesai from the manufacturing sector, Chartered Accountant Sandeep Bhandare, lawyer Amey Kakodkar and trade union leaders Christopher Fonseca and Putu Gaonkar are also on the task force. Director of Industries, Trade and Commerce and the Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Promotion Board are also part of the task force, according to the order issued on Monday last.
Power dept chief, four others
get service extensions
PANAJI: Chief Electrical Engineer Reshma Mathew has been granted a six-month service extension beyond the date of her June 1 superannuation, according to an order issued by the Personnel Department.Three other senior engineers of the Electricity Department subordinate to Mathew, who was given charge of Chief Electrical Engineer’s office over a year ago, were also simultaneously granted six-months extension. They include Executive Engineers C H Rajagopalan, Sunil B Wadkar and Devadasan A.
Also, retired Executive Engineer, Radhakrishna Kenny, who was functioning as Electrical Inspector under the State Electrical Inspectorate, has been re-appointed for another year with effect from May 30.
