Death by committee
Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Kamal Nath recently slammed the Planning Commission, saying that he wanted to build 20km of highway a day but failed, as India’s apex planning body applied the brakes. Compare that with Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, who evidently set out to constitute a committee every day of his term, and more than succeeded!
Of course, 20 km of highway is a great deal more useful than a committee, and the opening day of the monsoon session of the Goa Legislative Assembly saw the CM admitting that too many committees had been constituted by his government. More than half of them have not held a single meeting since their inception, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat confessed.
We come across such gems, usually, during assembly sessions. Mapusa BJP MLA Francis D’Souza asked the question, and must have been amazed at the answer. We now have a unique ‘kabrastan’ for inconvenient issues in this state. Simply form a committee to deal with the issue and it gets buried forever!
It was Leader of the Opposition Manohar Parrikar who brought it to the CM’s notice that a total of 1,423 committees had been constituted by the government for various purposes since July 2007. That’s enough committees for nearly four years. Of them, he pointed out, 774 committees – over half – had never met during from the day they were set up; only 129 met regularly.
Funnily enough, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat was quite unaware that he himself headed 25 committees; and had to be told this by Mr Parrikar, who also revealed that there was a one-person Health Committee with Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane as its only member. This is surely one more dubious first for Goa.
The Chief Minister agreed with Mr Parrikar that the functioning of these committees must be monitored. But surely he cannot appoint another committee for this task…! The more sensible measure is Speaker Pratapsingh Rane’s suggestion, that the government fix a time-frame for each committee. That may not get them to meet, but whether they do or they don’t, they will automatically cease to exist the day their term expires.
The problem is that even when committees do meet conscientiously, complete their work and submit reports, they gather dust. Take the monitoring committee constituted by the state government in October 2008 to look into alleged illegal mining.
It was formed after the government came under heavy fire from the Opposition on the floor of the assembly. Mr Parrikar cited irrefutable evidence of ore exported being far in excess of ore on which royalty had been paid to the government.
But the recommendations made by the committee after it visited around 50 mines have been completely ignored. Illegal mining is going on unhindered, while the report has been laid to rest in peace. That’s death by committee for you.
Terrorists
Shortly after the Bombay High Court restored the tough Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) charges against Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, Lt Col S P Purohit and nine others in the Malegaon, Parbhani and Jalna bomb blasts, the Goa government – in the shape of Home Minister Ravi Naik – officially referred to the four Sanatan Sanstha (SS) members accused of carrying out the 2009 Diwali-eve blast in Goa as ‘terrorists’ for the first time. The all-important term was in a written reply to the Goa Legislative Assembly yesterday.
Those who plant bombs to kill and injure ordinary people are terrorists. Terror has no scruples and no values. It is based purely on hate. Terrorists must be put down with a firm hand, regardless of their religion. But it is even more important to disband the organisations that encourage and sponsor them.
