MARGAO: Revenue Minister Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate attributed the delays in clearing of pending mundkarial cases to the additional election duty given to the concerned staff handling such cases.
He noted that this delay has occurred only recently once the staff was given election duty and he said that is something out of his control.
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Monserrate was responding to queries from media persons over the complaints raised by citizens.
“These complaints may have come in these days. This delay would be because they are on election duty. But we have been following up speeding up the disposal of such cases within three months’ time since the time I took charge. That is why the mamlatdars have been asked to work on Saturdays too to clear the backlog of cases,” said Monserrate.
“I had even given a reply in the Assembly over this issue that we are expediting these cases on priority. However, at present, they have been given the election duty by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and we can’t rule over the Election Commission. This election duty is not given only to them but to other government staff too, including the municipal workers,” Monserrate added.
The citizens had complained that when they had gone to the mamlatdars office for these cases, they were told that the officials were not available as they had other administrative duty or some other technical reason.
These citizens lamented that this was extremely frustrating as they should have been told not to visit the office and said such delays undermines the very assurances given by the government of quick disposal of these cases, which have been pending for years.
Government officials pointed out that the South Goa District Collector had issued directions to all the Deputy Collectors and Sub-Divisional Officers (SDOs) and mamlatdars and joint mamlatdars who have also been asked to submit weekly progress reports of the hearings in this regard, on every Monday.
This included holding of mundkarial cases on Saturdays, which has been initiated at the District Collectorate.
