PANDURANG GAONKAR
PANAJI
Taking serious note of misuse of funds at the Goa Konkani Akademi (GKA) and in a bid to ensure greater transparency, the State government has brought the GKA and similar institutions receiving government funds under the ambit of the RTI Act and has
also appointed Public Information Officers (PIO) to these institutions.
The government has also decided to scrutinise the financial affairs of these Institution.
According to sources, Director of Official Languages Sneha Morajkar, who is currently holding charge of GKA, noticed misuse of funds in various schemes in and decided to handover the matter to the government for further action.
The GKA and similar institutions seek financial support from the Art and Culture Department, Official Languages department and other academies.
“The standard of some books has been very poor and grants were given without following any criteria,” a senior government official told The Goan.
“The government is committed to the development of languages, but institutions promoting the development of languages must give stress to literature of a certain standard.”
“Misuse of public money must be stopped and the government is working towards this,” the official said.
In a related development, the Official Languages Department had earlier in writing informed some academies to appoint PIOs and to provide answers to application seeking information under RTI.
The department has now appointed Public Information Officers, Assistant Information Officers and Appellate Authority for the GKA, Goa Marathi Academy, Dalgado Konkani Academy, Konkani Bhasha Mandal and Akhil Bhartiya Konkani Parishad.
The GKA’s Research Assistant and Junior Stenographer will be the PIO and Assistant PIO respectively, while the secretary of GKA will be the first appellate authority.
The member secretary of Goa Marathi Academy will be PIO, while its chairman will be the appellate officer. Likewise, the secretary and treasurer of the Dalgado Konkani Academy will be the PIO and Assistant PIO respectively, while the president and secretary of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal will be PIO and Assistant PIO respectively.
The president and vice president of All India Konkani Parishad will be PIO and Assistant PIO respectively.
