“We decided to temporarily enhance the Contingency Fund so as to meet salary and other expenses,” Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said.

Explaining the logic behind the move, Parsekar said that once the government changed, he needed time to study the situation and so he had taken the decision to increase the fund.

The Cabinet has also cleared the proposal to reconstitute the districts by shifting Ponda taluka to the South district, Parsekar said. He also announced a scheme for fire and emergency service personnel who may suffer disability in the line of duty. A maximum of Rs Rs 20 lakh will be given to those who suffer total disability. 

According to the chief minister, the decision to shift Ponda to the South Goa district was to mitigate the population imbalance between the north and south Goa electorate as North Goa has a total population of 8,18,008 while south has 6,40,537 population – a difference of almost 2 lakh.

“So we decided to shift Ponda taluka to the South Goa district. Also Mapusa and Ponda will have additional collectors for better administration,” Parsekar said.

The chief minister said that this would also ensure that that there are equal ZP members in both the north and south Goa districts.

At present North has 30 members while South has 20. He said that this was just a cabinet decision and cannot be notified immediately as the code of conduct is in force.

“We will be writing to the Election Commission and once we get a clearance, we will notify this,” he said.