15-day monsoon session of House to begin from July 21

Panaji: Goa governor P S Sreedharan Pillai on Saturday summoned a 15-day monsoon session of the legislative assembly from July 21.During the session, MLAs will discuss and pass the budget that was presented by chief minister Pramod Sawant in March.

The opposition is not happy with the duration of the session and said govt is scared of getting exposed on the floor of the House.The monsoon session is likely to be stormy as, after a year-long wait, the opposition will get ample time to corner state govt on various issues. The opposition will get an opportunity to raise issues such as unemployment, land grabs, job scams, and law and order.Leader of the opposition Yuri Alemao said govt has been shrinking the duration of assembly sessions, much like its promises, over the past three years.

“The summoning of the tenth session of the eighth legislative assembly for a mere 15 days is evidence that govt has found an escape route from getting exposed,” Alemao said. “Last year, it was 18 days, and now three days have been deducted.”He added, “I condemn BJP’s act of undermining democracy and the voices of the people of the state. The curtailment of the assembly session is an endorsement of its failures in every sector, be it the state’s financial position or unemployment.”

Alemao said, “We will expose this corrupt govt and show how it failed in governance too.”During the business advisory committee meeting of the budget session, CM Sawant assured the opposition of a lengthy monsoon session. Besides govt bills, private members’ resolutions will be passed.State govt is likely to introduce two different bills in the monsoon session of the assembly to regularise illegal structures on comunidade and govt lands.Govt, through the bill, seeks to empower the administrator of comunidades to decide on applications — bypassing comunidades — to regularise illegal structures, not exceeding an area of 300sqm.Initially, govt wanted to issue an ordinance, but as the assembly was being summoned, it decided to introduce bills in the monsoon session. In 2012, BJP govt tried to consider regularising illegal houses built up to the year 2000 on comunidade properties in Goa, but that did not see the light of day as no comunidade gave NOCs to applicants.