Team Herald
PONDA: Former PWD minister and Marcaim MLA Sudin Dhavlikar on Wednesday praised Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Health Minister Vishwajit Rane “for doing a good job.” However, he criticised all other ministers.
Addressing the media in Ponda, Sudin alleged that the ministers failed to deliver when the State is going through crisis of revenue. “No proper step is taken to increase revenue and the ministers are making statements without studying issues concerning their departments,” he said.
“I will speak on the performance of the chief minister only after he completes one year. While the Health Minister Vishwajit Rane is performing well, the performance of other ministers is not satisfactory. The State’s financial condition is weak and needs steps to increase revenue,” Sudin said.
Though Sudin did not criticise the chief minister, he cautioned him over the Mopa Airport agreement with GMR.
“He should take his own time and read each and every clause of this 500-page agreement. He also should appoint a high level committee to study the terms and conditions of the agreement or else the State may have to pay crores of rupees to GMR,” he said adding, “Already government has lost Rs 379 crore to Reliance Power Company.”
He criticised Transport Minister Mauvin Godhino for reducing the road tax to fifty percent and questioned whether there was Cabinet approval for it. “When the State is already facing shortage of revenue, such step would only worsen it. The chief minister should intervene and control revenue loss,” he said.
He also slammed Mauvin for not paying the honorarium to the sarpanchs and panchas since last six months.
“Out of the 191 panchayats, at least 65 percent are poor and need money for development work and to clear light and water bills. The Marcaim Panchayat had only Rs 420 in its balance, but the PWD Department threatened to sue it for recovery of Rs 18,000 pending water bill amount. On one hand the government is not releasing funds and the other, it issues notices to panchayats. This shows that the Departments are not working properly,” he said.
Sudin slammed Power Minister Nilesh Cabral for threatening to disconnect power to Opa plant.
over pending bill amount of Rs 30 crore. “The consumers are regularly paying water bills. Instead of threatening to cut power supply to Opa, he should make effort that these bills are cleared through Finance Department,” he said and dared him to disconnect the power supply to Opa.
