the goan I network
PANAJI
The wheel has moved a full circle. Once a blue-eyed organisation of the government for all civil works, the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) has fallen out of favour to shoulder the responsibility of repairs, upgradation, maintenance, construction and reconstruction work of its schools and higher secondary schools.
It will now be shouldered by the Public Works Department, as was being done before the job was handed over to the GSIDC a few years ago.
The Pramod Sawant-led cabinet approved the decision at its meeting on Wednesday in which the council of ministers resolved to entrust all civil works of government primary, middle, secondary and higher secondary schools back to the PWD.
The cabinet also passed a transition plan by which GSIDC will provide a list of completed as well as ongoing works of all the government educational institutions to the PWD.
The cabinet also set the GSIDC a December 2020 deadline to complete all the ongoing works and debarred the Education Department from assigning any new work to the Corporation.
The financial implication of the decision, cabinet sources said, will be to the extent of the amount arrived at through the tendering process of the PWD for each of the works assigned to the department.
In another major decision, the Goa cabinet approved a decision to clamp down on labour and other strikes carried out illegally. Accordingly, the council of ministers approved changes in the statutes and tweak provisions of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) to hike the jail term of offenders from the existing three to six months.
Yet another decision taken at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday permitted members of the Board of Directors of primary cooperative societies who are elected to apex and federal institutions to
enjoy managerial rights in individual capacity of the other primary societies.
The council of ministers approved an amendment to the cooperative law and omit the provision which earlier debarred directors of apex and federal institutions from enjoying the powers of the primary society they originally belonged to.
Meanwhile, Sawant told the media that his initiative to take Goa’s common citizenry on board in the process of budget preparation through a web page on the government’s official website has evoked a good response and already some 150-odd suggestions have been received.
Sawant had on Monday announced a novel idea of asking for ideas and suggestion from common people both for revenue generation as well as government spending which he promised will be incorporated in his budget if feasible.
The chief minister is scheduled to present the State budget for the 2020-21 fiscal on February 6. It will be his first full-fledged budget since taking over the government since mid-March last year after his predecessor Manohar Parrikar passed away.
