An interesting article appeared in Goanews on the Goa IT scene back in time - “Bigger than IT was Parrikar’s ego” by Mr. Ramakant Khalap.
Appended further is also the report in the Herald with a reader’s comment. Could someone shed light on what is the meaning of “meunno”? Mention is made of a certain Rajyadhyaksha of Gartner of America. Is he really the the “meunno”? Interestingly per the news report in Herald. Manohar Parrikar says that the incident goes back to 9 years ago in time and has no comments to offer. So much for transparency from this senior leader. Isn’t this a serious matter that would need one to respond to rather than claiming it goes back in time? So much for our Goan politicians and the deep-rooted corruption that we are faced with. Shame on our Goan politicians not one of them is clean! Neopotism, kick-backs and destroying Goa in the name of so-called development” is what we keep seeing from all these corrupt politicians from all quarters. In record time all these corrupt politicans have sought to destroy Goa! Read on…. BIGGER THAN IT WAS PARRIKAR'S EGO By Ramakant Khalap - Chairman of Goa Law Commission Published in Goanews "Indian Talent in particular and Information Technology in general are going to catapult India to the Super Power status in the near future". This is the prophecy of Dr Raghunath Mashelkar, India's foremost scientist, who is also a proud Goan. Born in Mashel or Marcel in Ponda Taluka in penury, Dr Mashelkar rose to dizzy heights in Science through hard work, integrity, honesty and commitment to lofty ideals. He was recently in Goa and spoke on the topic "Shaping India's Future through Indian Talent" as a part of the Silver jubilee Lecture series being organized by the Goa University. My association with Dr Mashelkar is about two-decade old. At my request, he had accepted the mantle of Chairmanship of The Info Tech Council of Goa in the year 2000, when I was the first Minister for IT in Goa. Dr Mashelkar roped in stalwarts in the Information Technology field as members of the Goa Info Tech Council. These included the likes of Mr K. Narayan Murthy of Infosys, Mr Rajendra Powar of NIIT, Dr Vijay Bhatkar ( Param Computer fame) of C-DAC, Prof. Inderesan of IIT Kanpur, Mr Devang Mehta of NASSCOM, the former Director General of National Informatics Center etc. These gentlemen prepared the roadmap for Goa's IT revolution. Based on their advice, I prepared a Five-point IT programme. I called it PANCHASHEEL of IT. The Panchasheel included (1) E-education, (2) E-governance, (3) E-enabled IT services, (4) E- habitats and cyber city and (5) ICE or Information, Communication and Entertainment hub. System Requirement Studies (SRS) of all Government departments were required to be done as a prelude to e-governance. Mr. Manohar Parrikar, who was then the Chief Minister of Goa, recommended a firm called Gartner of America for preparation of SRS reports. This firm was represented by a gentleman called Rajyadhyaksha, reportedly a distant relative of Mr Parrikar. Gartner' quote to prepare SRS reports of Government Departments (about 84 in all) was in the range of Rs 2 to 5 crore per department. The total was about Rs 250 to 350 crore. Mr Parrikar was prepared to spend this huge amount on the spacious plea that Gartner is a world renowned company and would do a great job. I refused and instead requested Mr Chandra Babu Naidu, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh to help me prepare SRS reports. He sent a team of about 35 IT engineers and consultants. Dr Vijay Bhatkar pooled in another team of about 30 consultants through C-DAC. Together they did the job in about 3 months at a total cost not exceeding Rs 70 lakh. This perhaps hurt Mr Parrikar's ego. He shelved the SRS reports and also wound up the Info Tech Council headed by such an eminent person as Dr R. A. Mashelkar. Mr Parrikar also succeeded in shunting me out of the next Goa Assembly with active support from my detractors in my party, the Congress. Even after I was out of the Assembly, Mr Parrikar could have implemented the IT programme and claimed the entire credit for it . But what followed is a saga of corruption of Himalayan proportions. Instead of creating "smart e-schools', Mr Parrikar doled out expensive but poor quality computers to individual school students. For this, he accepted the highest bid of around Rs 20 crore from his trusted lieutenant, one Mr Nilesh Amonkar, against the much lower bids of world renowned e-education providers like Tata's and NIIT of Rajendra Powar. He also torpedoed the Cyber City project at Mandrem by setting up his MLA from Mandrem Mr Laxmikant Parsekar, a Science graduate and Headmaster of a local School, who thundered that his Constituency prefers traditional vocations to IT. He incited the local villagers to agitate against my Cyber City and Cyber Retreat projects. The Mandrem plateau has now been sold out to Real Estate Sharks. The IT habitat at Dona Paula, developed at a huge cost to the exchequer, was sold by a subsequent Government for Rs 3600 per square meter as against the prevailing price of RS 60,000 to Rs 80,000 per square meter. This habitat, whose foundation stone was laid at the hands of Mrs Sonia Gandhi and was named as "Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat", was vandalized by supporters of the local MLA Mr Babush Monserrate. His goons mercilessly assaulted the Congress Youth wing activists, including my son Ashwin. They were demanding early completion of the IT habitat. This habitat now lies in limbo. E-governance project was inaugurated at the hands of no less a person than our Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Sing. Expensive hardware purchased for this scheme is gathering dust in various Government offices. And that is the end of our tall promises to our educated youth. It would have got jobs in thousands to the people of Goa, whom I had promised the government just with a click of a Computer mouse. One man's ego cost Goa the entire IT programme. If implemented, it would have put Goa on the world IT map. Goa lost an opportunity to be a part of the Indian Talent pool in Information Technology, which is now poised to catapult India to the status of a Super Economic Power. ******************************************** News report in response to this Article in today’s Herald No comments on Khalap’s charges’ HERALD REPORTER PANJIM, FEB 2 Opposition Leader Manohar Parrikar has snubbed some of the allegations against him by Ramakant Khalap for giving expensive but poor quality computers to school students during his tenure as the chief minister of Goa. In an article written by him on www.goanews.com Khalap, who is the chairman of Goa Law Commission, held Parrikar responsible for failing to implement the IT programme in the State and charged him of corruption in a bid invited for supplying computers worth crores of rupees. He further charged the then CM of hijacking the Cyber City project at Mandrem which was now sold to real estate giants. Parrikar has been accused of wounding up the Info Tech Council of Goa headed by eminent Goan-born scientist Dr Raghunath Mashelkar. Khalap wrote that Dr Mashelkar had accepted the mantle of chairmanship of Info Tech Council of Goa in the year 2000 on his request when the former was the State’s first IT Minister. The present Goa Law Commission Chairman said based on a road map prepared by the Infotech Council, he had prepared a five-point IT programme called Panchsheel. However, he lamented Parikar didn’t approve of any of his initiatives and systematically succeeded in shunting him out of the Goa Assembly with the support from the Congress party. When contacted, Parrikar snubbed Khalap, “Who is Khalap? He is not even an elected representative. Am I supposed to react to what any Tom, Dick and Harry on the road says?” He chided further, “These are issues dating back to nine years and should have been raked up then. Looks like Khalap has woken up after a long slumber. I have no comments to offer.” ********************* Comments from a reader Menino G.P.T. Fernandes (Valpoi/UK) Tuesday, February 02nd, 2010 >From what we have heard it was Parrikar’s Meunno (brother in law) who gave the worst of the computers in Goa during the Parrikar Regime. How did the contract land on to his “MEUNNO”? were there no other computer firms in Goa to distribute good quality computers to Students instead of givein AMD why not Pentium? Parrikar’s Meunno has pocketed a huge booty with the blessings of PARRIKAR – Viva Parrikar
