NT NETWORK
PANAJI
The government on Tuesday issued a circular that concentrated all administrative powers in the hands of the Power Minister Nilesh Cabral.
However, strong objection taken by many of the ministers to the particular circular prompted the Chief Secretary Dharmendra Sharma to withdraw the same on Wednesday, and assure that it would be duly rectified. However, the fresh circular was not issued till Wednesday late night.
The circular stated, “All Secretaries/ additional secretaries/ joint secretaries/ under secretaries to government/ secretariat departments/ heads of departments/ officers/ corporations/ autonomous bodies are hereby directed that all the correspondence, files and all other official matters be addressed and diverted to the Office of the Honorable Minister for Power at 1st floor, ministerial block, Porvorim-Goa. This is issued with the approval of Chief Secretary.”
The circular is signed by under secretary (General Administration – 1), Varsha Naik. The copy of the circular was forwarded to the offices of all ministers, besides office of the under secretary to the Chief Minister, offices of all government departments, government officers, and corporations as well as autonomous bodies, among others.
Minister for Town and Country Planning Vijai Sardesai later told this daily, “It clearly appears from the language of the text that Cabral has been given the charge (of the administration).”
“However, later many ministers sought clarification from the Chief Secretary, who said that he would clarify on the order,” Sardesai added, pointing out, “When I spoke to the Chief Secretary he told me that the particular circular pertains to the things in his (Cabral’s) departments, because he (Cabral) had asked that all his correspondence should be routed through him.”
The Minister for Town and Country Planning also said that in an era of decentralisation of work, going back to single window system would be absurd.
Besides Power, Cabral holds portfolios namely Non-Conventional Energy, Law and Judiciary as well as Legislative Affairs.
Another minister termed the incident as the desire
of Cabral to become a “glorified clerk”. “Now he will get all the correspondence including letters received by the electricity department from the members of the public, which covers complaints like say irregular power supply and so on,” he retorted, observing that Cabral would now find all 24 hours of the day insufficient to deal with the heap of correspondence arriving on his table.
Yet another cabinet minister, representing a political party supporting the coalition government, said that strange decisions are being taken in the administration. “I feel that the Bharatiya Janata Party is testing the waters before actually handing over the state leadership to any of its party man,” he observed, adding that such acts would further damage the already sinking credibility of the state government.