the goan I network
PANAJI
The State government recently tweaked the rules under the Delivery of Public Services Act, and altered the time to be taken by officials in delivering several services in the Agriculture, Fisheries and Town and Country Planning Department.
Fishermen seeking to register their canoes can now wait as long as 60 days instead of the earlier 15 before their application can be disposed by the Director of Fisheries.
The state government, however, has given no explanation for this massive increase of gestation for applications from fishermen, generally the traditional ‘ramponkars’, to register their boats.
‘The time for disposal of the application for Registration Certificate of fishing canoe is now 60 days,’ the amendment to the rule said.
As per the earlier notification issued in December 2015, the field officer had to submit his/her report on the canoe for which registration is applied within five days. But the new notification gives the field officer a 35-day leeway.
Also, the final decision on the application, which earlier had to be taken within 5 days of receiving the field officer’s report, can now be done in 20 days’ time.
Other departments for which this waiting time has been tweaked include the Agricultural Department and the TCP department.
In all these cases, however, the government has reduced the period within which
officials have to dispose the applications.
In the TCP department, the time period to issue NOC under Section 49(6) of TCP Act for execution of Sale deed has been reduced from 20 days to 15.
Interestingly, according to the principal Time Bound Delivery of Public Service Act, 2013, Heads of Departments (Directors) are required to dispose a file in not more than four working days.
But the notification of the new rules apparently overrides the principal law.
