TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar promised a onetime sale of all discarded government vehicles and equipment as he set the house chuckling on his anecdotes of how sale of government scrap has thrown up weird instances.
Replying to the concerns raised by Calangute MLA Michael Lobo during the discussion on the demand for grant to the General Administration Department, Parrikar said that he would draw up a scheme for the one time auction of such items which are no longer useful.
Lobo had pointed out how all the ‘condemned’ furniture and non-working computers, etc were lying dumped in the corridors of Junta House, making it visually unappealing to those who pass by on the road.
Opposition Leader Pratapsing Rane too cautioned the government that in much of the scrap that the government intends to sell there could be equipment of heritage value including road rollers that ran on steam, mechanical sprayers that are no longer used today and other ‘ancient’ stuff.
“The younger generation will never know what this was like. It can be put in a museum,” Rane said.
Parrikar assured that he would take into account the possible presence of such valuable items and send them to museum and blamed lengthy government procedures for the situation.
However what sent the House into peals of laughter was when the chief minister recounted how, when they sought to dispose an old condemned ambulance from the Old GMC complex before renovating it to hosting IFFI, out walked a bearded beggar, who was sleeping in the vehicle and claimed the old Matador was his home.
In another incident Parrikar narrated how he staged the ‘stealing of the ambulance’ since officials told him that the ambulance was Central government property and that the State government could not auction it.
“I asked the Corporation of the City of Panaji to take the ambulance away and asked the official to report the ambulance as stolen,” Parrikar said.
He also recalled another instance where four brand new unpacked computers, were found in the condemned dump at the Goa Medical College and Hospital at Bambolim and were to be scrapped if they wasn’t noticed.
