BY A GT REPORTER
PANJIM: The Minister for Factories and Boilers Jose Filipe D'Souza yesterday promised to inquire into the reasons leading to the blast in Global Ispat. The assurance came close on the heels of Fatorda MLA Damodar Naik highlighting negligence of the operator to be the main cause behind the blast.
Naik said the negligence of the operator handling the ground leakage relay trip led to molten lava at 1500 degrees celsius into water which caused the blast. He wanted to know whether the attendance register of that day was confiscated by the authorities. Earlier, the Minister was quick to inform that out of a total of eight inspectors recruited for inspection, the Department was left with just four inspectors. Naik charged that there was no industrial safety in Goa as exemplified by the blast. On his part, the Minister promised to inquire into the blast at Global Ispat.
Art and culture
The Art and Culture Department will now have to conduct an awareness drive of their schemes under the Tribal Sub Plan for the benefit of tribal communities. For this, they will hold meetings with tribal clubs to take this task to its logical conclusion. Chief Minister Digambar Kamat assured Poinguinim MLA Ramesh Tawadkar to undertake such an exercise in tune with the demands of the latter.
Earlier, Tawadkar wanted the government to sanction grants earmarked under the Tribal Sub Plan to tribal cultural groups.
He expressed concern over the non-disbursal of grants despite their availabilty under the aforesaid Plan. Rising to reply, Kamat said Rs 123 lakhs under the Plan are earmarked this year for disbursal to cultural groups. This disbursal, Kamat said, varies in accordance with the nature of Sammelans divided into different categories -- national level, state level and taluka level. " While increasing the disbursal of grants, we see that the limit is within the system," informed the Chief Minister.
Desilting of Valvanti river
The government has been undertaking desilting of Valvanti river in Bicholim taluka at an expenditure of Rs 6.6 crores, informed Minister for Water Resources Filip Neri Rodrigues. While two tenders have already been floated, the third one is expected to be in the pipeline soon. A retaining wall of 300 metres will also be built, promised Rodrigues. Bicholim MLA Rajesh Patnekar wanted the government to acquire some land for this purpose, Rodrigues requested Patnekar's help for obtaining NOC from the land owner.
