PANAJI
Each of the seven-member Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Public Undertaking Committee (PUC) are scheduled to convene its respective meetings on Tuesday, focusing exclusively on observations of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports dating back to 2014-15.
Goa Legislature Department Joint Secretary Hercules Noronha on December 5, sent a letter to all 14 members of the two Committees, led by MLA Altone D’Costa and Leader of Opposition Yuri Alemao respectively. While the PUC meeting is summoned at 3 pm, the PAC will be held at 4 pm in the Legislative Assembly Complex on the same day.
These meetings, only the second since it was constituted in January this year, will delve into several CAG reports dating back to 2014-15 onwards.
It is learnt that the PAC, formerly led by Pratapsingh Rane hardly had any meetings and could not prepare any significant reports. PUC led by Digambar Kamat, had already prepared reports expected to be presented in the Goa Legislative Assembly earlier this year. However, health issues prevented Kamat from attending sessions, leading to a delay in tabling these reports.
The upcoming PAC and PUC meetings will scrutinize CAG reports and prepare reports which may take more than a year. The members also comprise Ganesh Gaonkar, Jennifer Monserrate, Kedar Naik, Pravin Arlekar, Premendra Shet, Jit Arolkar, Ulhas Tuenkar, Cruz Silva, and Viresh Borkar.
Although the Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly had constituted all Committees in January 2022 including PAC and PUC with Altone D'Costa and Yuri Alemao as its Chairman for a tenure of two years, both had their preliminary meetings in September, followed by the first meeting in November losing a considerable 10 long months.
Both PAC and PUC have just taken up a few CAG observations for financial years dating back to 2014-15.
Meanwhile, the Estimates Committee and Assurance Committee have also hardly met twice and are in the preliminary stages of preparing draft reports.
