SUSPICIOUS APPOINTMENTS
270 eligible candidates were denied a fair shot
All three appointments are locals of Vasco
One is the personal secretary of Metrology minister
To raise issue with newly-appointed Lokayukta
Calls on Vigilance department to take note
.....
Goa forward screams scam in legal metrology dept
Suspects undue favouritism in appointments
PANAJI
THE GOAN NETWORK
Goa Forward Party (GFP) on Sunday leveled charges if irregularities in recruitment of three inspectors in the department of legal metrology and suspected the involvement of legal metrology minister Milind Naik in the alleged scam whereby around 270 eligible candidates were denied a fair shot at the posts.
Party president Prabhakar Timble has announced the intention to formally raise the issue with the newly-appointed Lokayukta this week, while requesting him to take suo-moto cognizance of the matter and initiate a timely enquiry. He also said that vigilance department should take note of the matter.
Addressing the media in Panaji, general secretary of Goa Forward Mohandas Lolienkar stated, “Three vacancies for the post of inspector in the legal metrology department were advertised in December 2015, for which 273 persons appeared for a written test. However, all the three appointed persons are from Vasco, hometown of Milind Naik.”
He further said that of the three, one person is the personal secretary of the legal metrology minister. Also, while two appointees were sent for training to Jharkhand, PS to the minister was not, despite having accepted the offer letter.
“These three persons were the only people to score as high as 85, 84 and 68 in the written test, while all the other 270 candidates scored below 50. We have reasons to believe that the paper was leaked or the evaluations were biased,” Lolienkar said.
Declaring its full support to the aggrieved, Goa Forward has appealed to the candidates to come forward and file complaints.
Meanwhile, vice president of Goa Forward, Dr Renuka D’Silva announced that the party will organize a day-long wall-mural painting event, ‘Goa Forward for Green Goa’ on Sunday, May 8. Children between the age group of 5 and 15 years will step out to paint wall murals depicting natural environment.
Parents have freedom of choice on MoI: Timble
Reiterating its stand on the issue of Medium of Instruction (MoI), Goa Forward Party chief Prabhakar Timble said that the party stands by the freedom of the parents in choosing MoI for their children.
However, an educationist himself, Timble sought to stress the need for upping the level of primary school education imparted in all schools across the barriers of MoI.
"Government’s job is not to impose MoI on the children and their parents. Instead, it should prioritise raising the level of primary education as a whole in Goa. Its duty is to make good schooling available to all so that a multi-lingual, multi-cultural Goa can be promoted,’ Timble stated while insisting that grants to schools should not be discontinued on the basis of MoI.
He observed that the age-old virtue of imparting primary education in mother tongue is being questioned in the present socio-economic context and said that even the latest UNESCO reports talk of ‘local language’ as opposed to mother tongue.
