TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The tourism ministry has admitted to technical and administrative lapses owing to which a major amount of Rs 183 crore allocated for tourism infrastructure development has remained unutilized.
In a written reply to the Goa Assembly earlier this week, the tourism ministry pointed out that it did not have the manpower and technical staff needed to undertake these works departmentally. The department had a project cell comprising of some engineers who were holding additional charge from the department of Water Resources and one consultant.
The department was allocated Rs 36,080 lakh during the year 2012-13. It has also attributed non-utilisation of funds due to non-finalisation of estimates, non-availability of implementing agency and resource crunch faced by the department, in addition to the delay in obtaining various permissions.
Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar argued that now the department has created a special purpose vehicle (GTDC) and necessary manpower and staff are being recruited for speedy implementation of Central and State funded projects in reply to queries from Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte.
Parulekar denied any failure on the part of the ministry in creating infrastructure for tourism in Goa. He further says that the government is serious in creating tourism infrastructure in the State of Goa.
Parulekar also refuted allegations of non-issue of work orders for various projects where the tendering process has already been completed.
