VASCO: Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar took a dig at his own law department for failing to redress the concerns raised by investors before the government.
“If you want to delay any file, mark it to law department and then the file would be pending there, delaying the implementation of the decision. Therefore lot many things have to be done to change the system,” he said addressing industrialists from Verna Industrial Estate.
Later, realising that he just scored a self goal, Parsekar tried to mitigate his indictment of the law department by saying, “I said this as a joke, not seriously. On many occasions I have heard people saying, ‘if you want to delay any file, then, mark it to law department’. So, I just repeated what I had heard from others; I didn’t mean to say the law department has been delaying files.”
Meanwhile, Parsekar claimed that he was yet to receive any official communication from party heads directing all BJP MLAs and ministers to submit their bank transaction details from November 8 to December 31 to party President Amit Shah on January 1 2017, and that he came to know about the same through newspapers.
“Firstly, I want to say that the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah is good. As a normal routine, we have been filing our income returns before Income Tax department as well as before Lokayukta. So, our MLA’s and ministers will have no difficulty in complying with such direction.”
Replying to a query on how fast Goa would become cashless, Parsekar said, “It was the BJP which first started transferring amount to the beneficiaries of various government schemes directly in their bank account and thus working in same lines government has been trying to bring regularity in the process of making Goa cashless within a fortnight or before December 15 2016.”
The chief minister also claimed that no serious minded person opposed the government effort on making Goa cashless, though the opposition has been trying to take political mileage by opposing the move.
Overall, he said, the people have understood the objective behind the move and have welcomed the proposal.
“Without hesitation, I can say that around 70 percent of the people, once they know its objective, will accept going cashless. Initially, there may be difficulties, but gradually things would improve.”
