Read the news in today's Times of India given below, which shows there is no
co-ordination between govt departments. The letter to keep the matter in
abeyance was sent by revenue secretary on 9/8/2010. The principal recipient of
letter was the Collector himself. How did he not receive it for 9 days in
Margao whereas the recipient of copy, the Dy. collector, Quepem promptly
received it on 11/8/2010?
The road from Tilamol to Cotarli is proposed to facilitate mining traffic. The
PWD under pressure from miners had sought police protection for survey. The
collector who is also under influence of miners tried to help them out by
providing police. He has always been saying in the last two years that he has
no police available to control mining traffic and to challan overloading and
speeding by truck drivers from Orissa and Zharkhand.
The lcollector sent the letter on 17/8/2010 and delivered to locals on same day
late evening through police asking them to be present themselves on 18/8/2010
at 11am at his Margao office. Why this haste? Does it not imply excessive
interest on part of collector and point to pressure/influence from interested
people, the 12 miners as stated by Collector himself in his order of 10/4/2010?
Can any hearing be held without giving sufficient notice? The miners probably
expected that the locals would find it difficult to attend at such a short
notice and hoped to get ex-parte order for police protection.
Incidently, the land acquisition for this road for mining is taken up merely on
the basis of a letter from MLA, who has no executive powers. Locals have
questioned why PWD did not carry out any studies to arrive whether the road is
needed for public urpose. The secretary, Revenue upheld this as PWD did not
complete the procedures they are supposed to complete and hence kept the land
acquisition under abeyance. Incidently, the task of planning mining roads was
taken away from the PWD and was given to a steering committee formed by mines
department vide order of 3/6/2010. PWD taking decisions without taking the said
committe into confidence is also another case of lack of cordination.
Incidently it has also come to notice that the Goa-PWD has no procedures for
planning a road. Whereas Central-PWD has a clearcut procedure manual to follow.
Why is there no procedure? No body in PWD seems aware. A RTI application is
being made seeking written or approved or implied procedure.
TOI news:
MARGAO: In a classic instance that effectively dramatized the lack of
coordination between government agencies, the PWD requisitioned the collector
for providing police protection for its personnel for demarcating the alignment
for the four-laning of Tilamol-Curchorem road when the government has already
kept the project in abeyance.
This came to light during a meeting chaired by south Goa collector G P Naik on
Wednesday of affected Curchorem residents opposing the four-laning of the road.
It may be recalled that Curchorem residents had recently chased away PWD
officials demarcating the area for widening the road.
Naik, also the district magistrate, had convened the meeting hoping to persuade
the agitators not to obstruct the PWD officials in their task. This puzzled the
Curchorem residents who were informed by government officials that the
four-laning had already been kept in abeyance.
Naik maintained that he was unaware about the work being kept in abeyance and
insisted that the residents fall in line. To Naik`s embarrassment, a resident
produced a copy of the letter by the revenue department addressed to the south
Goa collector pointing out that the project had indeed been kept in abeyance
"till the matter is approved by the steering committee" constituted by the
directorate of mines and geology.
Left red-faced, Naik gave the PWD officials a dressing down for the faux pas,
while the protestors walked away.
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