Another session of the State Legislative Assembly begins on Monday, the second since the beginning of the New Year, but there is no likelihood of the bill amending the Education Act to incorporate the cabinet decision on grants to English medium primary schools being tabled and passed. The Bill is still with the Select Committee which is yet to take a decision on it. This is the last Assembly session before the commencement of the new academic year, and should this cabinet decision not get legislated now, it may well remain so till the monsoon session of the Assembly sometime in July or August. The presentation of the Budget will dominate this Assembly session and being the last Budget before the Assembly elections, one can expect a number of sops. In a session during which the government will be looking at doling out schemes to entice the voters, the opposition will be concentrating on exposing scams for the same reason – to attract voters to it.
This session promises to be fiery, as finally there could be some semblance of an opposition to be seen and heard in the House. A number of MLAs, setting aside party affiliations, have decided to band together to corner the government on issues and ‘scams’. These are the same MLAs who have been the voice of the opposition in the House in the past four years, the only difference this time is that they have come together and will act as a team when taking on the government. Their coming together when the term of the Assembly has the maximum of a year to go, indicates that they too are hoping to cash in on short public memories and go to the polls having shown their debating skills and opposition to the government.
There is, however, much to question the government on and not necessarily on scams, but on future plans too. The government has for long been talking of tabling and passing the Regularisation of Illegal/Unauthorised Structures and Encroachments Bill. This has been a promise since 2001, when Manohar Parrikar was Chief Minister for the first time. The promise was resurrected in this term and the bill drafted, but it may not yet be tabled in this session. It had been meant to be tabled and passed in the winter session of the Assembly in January, but got held back. The government is, however, aiming to get it passed and notified so that the implementation can begin before the next Assembly elections that are due in early 2017.
The draft bill that was available does not distinguish between illegal structures built on government land or on land belonging to comunidades or even forest land. For regularization of the structures, all the owner has to do is produce rent or house tax receipts. The bill has already been called a ‘Draconian Bill’ and it is the comunidades who could be the biggest losers due to this bill as large tracts of land belonging to the comunidades have been encroached upon. Once this bill is legislated it will easily allow those who have encroached upon comunidade land to regularise their structures and continue living there. This bill, combined with the proposed amendment to the Comunidade law that will allow the government to acquire comunidade land to set up educational institutes, could well deliver another major blow on the village commune institutions that are already tottering in the State.
It is these two bills, when they are tabled in the House that need to be discussed, debated and passed only if they are deemed necessary. Exposing past scams will not change history, but stopping scams before they occur can help more. The opposition will be doing Goa a bigger favour if it stops these bills from being legislated.
