Euro tour pegged at over Rs 1 crore!!! Making gold out of garbage at the Goan taxpayer's expense!!!
November 6, 2013 TEAM HERALD teamher...@herald-goa.com PANJIM: The 38-member Goa delegation’s European safari which takes off early Thursday morning, will cost the public exchequer over Rs 1 crore. The nine day trip to study garbage treatment plants will cover Italy, Austria and Germany. While there was a lot of speculation on who’s on board and who’s not, the contingent which is to study garbage treatment plants successfully working across the globe in a bid to introduce similar technology in Goa was finalised on Tuesday with the inclusion of one more ‘delegate’ taking the total to 38. The team is led by Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza and Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar who is already in Europe will join the team there. Calangute MLA Michael Lobo, Curchorem MLA Nilesh Cabral, Sanguem MLA Subhash Phaldesai, Sanquelim MLA Dr Pramod Sawant, and Sanvordem MLA Ganesh Gaonkar are among the politicos who will make the grade. Among the government bureaucrats and officials are the chief secretary and secretary (environment) B Vijayan, Chairman of the Goa State Pollution Control Board Jose Manuel Noronha, member secretary of the GSPCB Levinson Martins and executive engineer GSPCB S Joglekar. Local body representatives include chairperson of Cacora Municipal Council Patricia Fernandes and two CMC members, Sarpanch of Saligao VP Eknath Oraskar, the attorney of Saligao Comunidade Austin Gama, Sarpanch Sangolda Premanand Kochrekar, Sarpanch Pilerne Sandip Bandodkar, Sarpanch Parra Delailah Lobo, ZP member Calangute Avelina Menezes, Sarpanch Calangute Geeta Parab, Panch Calangute VP Joseph Sequeira and Attorney of Calangute Comunidade Suhas Naik. A couple of others either representing village panchayats add to the team of 38. While there is a hue and cry that there are no technically qualified persons on the trip considering the fact that the tour involved studying the GTPs in Europe, we are told that the GSPCB member secretary and executive engineer , are technically qualified to scrutinise and check out all aspects pertaining to the GTP technologies. A source has justified the selection of a huge contingent, also including two media persons, on the grounds that only after seeing how the GTPs operate that the same could be introduced in Goa. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had himself inspected the GTPs and had then decided to send a team of MLAs, local body representatives to inspect and verify the same. Questions that continue to crop up is ‘who are the 38 and why these especially since most of them have no technical qualifications to understand and implement the technologies?’
