PANAJI
As many as eight bills introduced by the State government to amend various laws in the ongoing monsoon session of the Goa legislative assembly have been listed for consideration and passing in Monday's agenda, including the one that tweaks the Goa State Selection Commission (GSSC) which is being amended for the fourth time since its inception in September 2019.
The amendment to the GSSC Act, seeks to extend the deadline to August 31 for individual government departments to complete recruitment processes they had initiated independently, before the government's decision was taken to route all recruitment through the Commission.
The bill is piloted by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant who has three other legislations dealing with Goods and Services Tax (GST), Value Added Tax (VAT) and recovery of tax and penalty dues arrears through 'settlement', also listed for consideration and passing in Monday's agenda.
The bill on recovery of tax arrears was necessitated to fulfil proposals in Sawant's March budget speech which promised one-time-settlement (OTS) schemes to settle legacy commercial tax disputes.
Sawant's two bills to tweak the GST and VAT laws are meant to decriminalise certains sections and to up the threshold limit from Rs one crore to Rs two crore, to launch criminal proceedings under these laws.
There are also two bills which Revenue Minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate will move for consideration and passing on Monday. The first of these deals with the controversial law permitting regularisation of unauthorised constructions and the second seeks to tweak the law providing for eviction of encroachers and squatters from public premises.
