PANAJI
Goa's Chief Secretary Puneet Goel, IAS, has been named the new chairman of the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL) in which Revenue Minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate and his son Rohit have retained their positions on the Board.
The reconstituted board of IPSCDL now has seven ex-officio members, including Goel and four non ex-officio members.
The father-son Monserrate duo, sources said have been nominated by virtue of holding the elected positions of MLA of Panaji and Mayor of the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP).
Jennifer Monserrate who represents Taleigao in the Goa legislative assembly and over which the IPSCDL has jurisdiction, does not find a place on the Board.
Other than the Monserrates, the two other places on the IPSCL BoD have been taken by Deepak Kochar, who is Under Secretary (Finance) in the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Government of India and Ravi Dhawan, IAS, who is also the CEO and managing director of IPSCL.
On the ex-officio members list are: Finance Secretary Dr V Candavelou, IAS, Urban Development Secretary Ramesh Verma, IAS, North Goa Collector, Mamu Hage, IAS, Director (Urban Development) Gurudas P Pilarnekar, CCP Commissioner Agnelo A J Fernandes and Principal Chief Engineer, PWD, Uttam Parsekar.
The Directorate of Municipal Administration has been mandated to issue necessary notifications reconstituting the BoD as and when ex-Officio members change when the incumbents holding these posts are transferred.
ISPCL was constituted way back in 2016 as a special purpose vehicle to execute smart city projects after Panaji was selected as one of the 100 cities across India to be developed as such.
The flagship project announced in the first budget of the Narendra Modi government back in 2014 has hardly taken off and run into several controversies following the decision of the government to by-pass the authority of the CCP.
Panaji is the only designate 'smart city' wherein the municipal corporation is elbowed out of the planning as well as execution of Smart city projects. The norm elsewhere in the country is for the Smart City projects to be integrated with the civic body.
