PANAJI
In his first remarks in the Goa legislative assembly as an ‘MLA’ Govind Gaude on Tuesday took aim at the government questioning the trend where the Finance Department rejects tenders for projects which already have budget provisions and have the necessary administrative and technical sanctions and approvals.
“When it rejects financial approval is the Finance department saying that the engineers and officers of the departments who grant the ‘technical’ and ‘administrative’ sanctions are incompetent?” Gaude asked while speaking on the ongoing discussion on the State budget.
The monsoon session of the Goa legislative assembly which began on Monday is the first time that Gaude is in the House as a mere MLA. Since 2017, when he was elected from Priol for the first time, he has been a member of the cabinet first under the late Manohar Parrikar and then Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
Over a month ago on June 19, Sawant dropped him from his cabinet after he had raised issues with the functioning of the Tribal Welfare Department and levelled serious allegations of corruption in it. The department is held by Sawant himself.
In the House on Tuesday, meanwhile, Gaude while speaking on the budget said that inter-departmental coordination, or lack of it, is primarily responsible for a shortfall in capital expenditure and projects remaining unfinished.
“It looks like there are ego clashes between officers of one department and those of another,” Gaude said and urged the Chief Minister to discuss and debate this at the highest level in the administration and resolve it for better governance.
Gaude also raised issues about administrative and other minor hurdles which come in the way of disbursing government schemes to the disadvantaged sections of the population, especially through the tribal welfare department, the OBC and SC/ST Corporations and the Social Welfare Department.
Citing one example, Gaude said under one scheme, the beneficiary is required to get a ‘government servant’ to sign a form as a ‘witness/guarantor’ but no one easily agrees to do so. This requirement needs to be eliminated or modified, he added.
