PANAJI
The Goa Forward Party (GFP) has accused the ruling BJP government of attempting to accommodate the same candidates with whom politicians had a “setting” through the back door by ‘reviving’ the PWD recruitment process for 368 junior engineers and technical assistants.
GFP spokesperson Vikas Bhagat said it was highly objectionable that the government has revived the 2021 recruitment process instead of scrapping it and re-initiating it.
“By this the recruitment process is restricted to only those applicants who had applied and registered in 2021. All engineers who have graduated after that are left out,” Bhagat said, adding that it is injustice.
Pointing out that the GFP had raised the issue of the corruption tainted process consistently, Bhagat said they will continue to pursue the issue.
On Thursday, the controversial recruitment process conducted before the 2022 assembly elections but later scrapped after it was challenged before the Bombay High Court, was revived by the State government.
As per the notice issued by PWD’s Principal Chief Engineer, the process of recruiting 368 junior engineers and technical assistants has been has “re-initiated” from the stage of re-examination.
The original recruitment to fill these 368 posts had been initiated in the runup to the last assembly elections during the tenure of the then PWD Minister Deepak Pauskar.
Pauskar was accused of corruption and interference in the process and the issue blew up into a major controversy when some ruling party MLAs, including current Revenue Minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate, joined the Opposition in pointing accusing fingers.
Some candidates also challenged the process before the Bombay High Court and midway through its adjudication, the State government informed it was keeping the process on hold and also ordered a vigilance enquiry.
The Vigilance Probe reportedly indicted Pawaskar, who was also denied a renomination by the ruling BJP in the February 2022 elections.
After coming back to power following the elections, the State government said it had scrapped the entire process only to be now re-initiated from the stage of conducting a re-examination.
