PORVORIM: There were noisy scenes in the House on Friday, when the opposition charged the government of illegally forming the Textile and Coir department, headed by Minister Mahadev Naik, without clearance from the Cabinet and Finance department.
Terming the setting up of the department as a major ‘fraud’, the opposition claimed that Rs 1800 lakh have been spent on the department since its inception in May 2013.
There were heated discussions between the ruling and opposition benches on the formation of the department, with Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and Minister Naik failing to give satisfactory replies to questions raised by the opposition. Speaker Anant Shet, intervening in the matter, managed to stop the discussion.
The question tabled by Independent MLA Naresh Sawal, sought to know whether the government had obtained concurrence of the Cabinet and Finance department for the new department. He said that nearly Rs 1852 lakh have been spent on the department in the last two years, wherein nearly 90 percent training-cum-production centres were shut down during this period.
Alleging that the department’s functioning is a major fraud, Sawal informed the House that the cabinet had only approved allocation of business for the department and not creation of business.
“During this period of formation of department more 270 training-cum-production centres were closed down, without any reason. Currently there are only 30 such centres left,” he said. The government failed to give a reply on the number of training centres the State had.
Replying to the debate, Naik said that the Department of Handicrafts, Textile & Coir was in existence and was named Design & Development Centre under the then Directorate of Industries & Mines and further by name Training-cum-Production Section under the State Directorate of Craftsmen Training before its bifurcation and establishment of an independent Department. The opposition was not satisfied by this reply.
The reply tabled in the House says, “Since this new department viz. Department of Handicrafts, Textile & Coir was under the State Directorate of Craftsmen Training, the concurrence/approval of Finance Department, if required, ought to have been obtained by the State Directorate of Craftsmen Training before placing the matter before the Cabinet. However, the same have not been obtained.”
