TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: A reshuffle of the State Council of Ministers would be undertaken by the month-end with BJP-led government planning to hand over additional portfolios to its Ministers. Half of the Cabinet ministers are allocated two portfolios while Alina Saldanha has only one. Along with Cabinet reshuffle, St Andre MLA Vishnu Surya Wagh would be given the Chairmanship of Entertainment Society of Goa governing council, which is currently with the Chief Minister.
Speaking to Herald, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said that he is in process of evaluating the performance of the ministries and by end of this month new portfolios would be allocated to the ministers. Parrikar said that he is also busy doing troubleshooting for various departments, which are facing problems due to failure of former Congress-led government to govern.
“The Cabinet reshuffle is also expected,” Parrikar said adding “I am waiting for deputy chief minister Francis D’Souza to return from his leave”.
Chief Minister said that all the ministers would be taken into confidence before giving additional charge. He, however, refused to disclose details as to who would be given which portfolio, stating that “the process is on”.
There are seven first time ministers in a Cabinet of 12. While Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar holds around 25 portfolios, Alina has only one ~ Forest and Environment.
Dilip Parulekar, Mahadev Naik, Pandurang Dhavalikar, Milind Naik, Ramesh Tawadkar, Avertano Furtado and Alina are first time legislators holding several prime portfolios.
It can be recalled that Parrikar, soon after assuming charge in March 2012, had allotted two portfolios each to his seven ministers. The chief minister then had promised to allot one more portfolio within six months, after evaluating their performance.
When asked about the performance of his ministers, Chief Minister said “I am ‘reasonably’ happy. I cannot say I am fully happy as several ministers were new to this administration. But I am glad that they (ministers) are slowly understanding the functioning of government… they now know what is wrong and what is right,” he explained.
This comes in the wake of reports of confabulations among various MLAs including some BJP MLAs in the past few weeks.
Parrikar said all ministers would be taken into confidence before giving additional charge, but refused to disclose details as to who would be given which portfolio
