TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar promised to set up a special cell within the vigilance department to deal with disproportionate assets of government servants, even as he said he would ask the department to sort out complaints against those that ‘appear serious and those that appear frivolous’
Replying to the discussion on demands for grants for the Vigilance Department and to concerns raised by members of the House, during the discussion about the long time it would take to process complaints filed before the department, the chief minister said that he had increased the budgetary allocation and would increase staff of the department.
“The previous government was killing the department, the funds allocation was low and there was no staff either,” Parrikar said and added that he had increased the funds and was in the process of posting the number of officers in the department.
Parrikar also made special mention of two very ‘active’ activists, without of course naming them, referring to an electricity department engineer and a lawyer who files RTI applications saying that persons like them were misusing the system.
In the same breath he wondered aloud whether the police have to re-look at the case of rape which was taken up by one such lawyer and later backed down.
“I have asked the department of vigilance to sort them into two groups, one which appear to be serious and appear to be frivolous. Some also have a grievance angle,” Parrikar said, adding that such a move will speed up cases.
Tivim MLA Kiran Kandolkar raised the issue of how a case was filed against him and the chief minister and they did not even know what they were being implicated and realised it only through the newspapers.
He sought that action be taken against such complaints which he said are filed for the sake of publicity.
