PANAJI
Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai has issued an order summoning the Goa Legislative Assembly to meet from March 27 at 11.30 am for a five-day budget session.
The notification containing the Governor’s order was issued by the Legislature Secretariat on Friday.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant is slated to present the State’s budget for 2023-24 on day one of the session itself and also secure a 4-month vote of account to get legislative sanction for government expenditures in the first quarter of the new financial year.
Meanwhile, with the session again restricted to just five days, it is likely to be the bone of contention for a fierce confrontation between the government and the Opposition. Such a confrontation was seen during the winter session in mid-January which was of just four days.
The Opposition had then launched a scathing attack on the government accusing it of attempting to duck legislative scrutiny and accountability of the administration by resorting to short-duration sessions cramped with government legislative business.
Opposition Leader Yuri Alemao and the Opposition bloc had even got into a confrontation with Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar for permitting the government to eliminate ‘Private Member’s business’ altogether in the winter session.
The Opposition was particularly upset that the government had not yielded to their demand to add more days to the session in the wake of the Mhadei water sharing dispute erupting again with Karnataka’s DPRs approved by the Central Water Commission.
Conceding a day’s discussion on Mhadei, without any extension of the session would cramp up government business to just three days, the Opposition had contended.
