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Goa govt recommends hiking contingency fund

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panaji

The Goa government on Friday recommended to the state governor to increase the contingency fund to meet its regular expenditure.

The move has received flak from legal experts and opposition parties

The need to increase the contingency fund has come in the wake of the dissolution of the Goa assembly on February 27, on the eve of the budget session scheduled for March 13.

"It is an unanimous and legally well-advised decision of the Cabinet," Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar told a media briefing on Friday evening.

The Cabinet has recommended to Governor Mohammed Fazal to promulgate an ordinance by amending section 2 of the Goa Contingency Act 1998, increasing financial limit from Rs 100 million to Rs 10.9 billion till July 31, 2002.

The state is going for fresh assembly polls, only after which the state Budget can be presented in the new assembly.

The elections are expected to be held in the first week of June.

Opposition parties, notably the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, and several legal experts have been consistently opposing Parrikar's move to lift money from the contingency fund, describing it unconstitutional.

They said that the only option is to impose President's rule under Article 356 and get the Budget passed through Parliament. This cannot be done now as the assembly has been dissolved under Art 174 (2) b, which does not provide for passing the Budget through Parliament.

Against their argument that the contingency fund is meant only for 'unforeseen expenditure' and not for the 'routine foreseen expenditure' like salaries, Parrikar argues that it is also meant for 'unforeseen circumstances'.

The ball has now been thrown into the court of the state governor, who has already come under criticism for dissolving the House without considering these factors.

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