It is the compulsion of every ruling party to include and accommodate some MLAs as ministers for compulsions beyond merit. But it is well within the political prowess of the heads of government to park such ministers in departments which are not directly critical to the governments progress or the state’s economy. The Power Ministry at the centre and the power departments in the states are the nerve center’s of economic growth and need ministers, who at the very least, look at their task as that of augmenting power infrastructure in order to compliment the efforts of industry. Secondly power generation, or power purchase coupled with foolproof distribution should be a non-negotiable Key Responsibility Area for any minister. Goa’s Power Minister Milind Naik, has boxed the world view of Goa’s Power department, to a cell which affects recruitments to the very selective allocation of power to industry and business, based on factors which are completely extraneous to the industrial eco- system. Simply put, if industries have been promised a smooth entry into the state, a robust power department which makes power availability, distribution, costing and ease of allocation are equal priorities. Goa’s power minister, however, runs it like a poorly managed panchayat office.
While his non-functioning has affected industry and caused a great deal of discomfort to the government, the controversies surrounding the power department which point to myriad irregularities bordering on possible pelf, makes the continuation of Milind Naik untenable. Goa simply needs an efficient Power Minister who delivers more power to Goa rather than usurp power upon himself.
He however keeps drawing attention to himself for the wrong reasons. The latest controversy to be unearthed in his department was reported by Herald on Friday. A tender for conversion of existing 11kv overhead bare conductor lines in GED network to 11kv aerial bunched cable network at an estimated cost of Rs 139.43 crore was floated. The conversion to an aerial bunched cable network requires 20,000 electric poles. Now inspite of High Court directives that these kind of purchases must be made though a government controlled and approved body, in this case the Goa Handicrafts Corporation, the power department has decided to buy the poles from a private dealer.
This is just another in the long list of irregularities that seem to plague the department, from not sanctioning much needed power loads, or not issuing appointment letters to those executive engineers whose recruitment has been cleared by the Chief Minister. Way back in end 2015, Herald had reported that 23 files of commercial power connections have been kept pending without any valid reason for more than two years.
The department and actually the minister’s functioning has become personality based rather than performance based. For instance Milind Naik insisted that former controversial Chief Electrical Engineer S Lekshamanan be appointed as Electrical Inspector because, according to him, “the post of Electrical Inspector is vacant from last one year as a result the statutory functions of the inspectorate are not being attended”.
Quite clearly, the onus is now on the Chief Minister to take a call on his minister. The former has had to intervene on repeated occasions to course correct decisions that the minister has taken. Given the time and energy the Chief Minister needs to spend to fire fight issues concerning the power department, he might as well handle portfolio himself.
