Panaji Apr 19 PTI Goa Town and Country Planning Minister Vishwajit Rane on Tuesday held a review meeting with officials and said restructuring of the department was required to improve efficiency He said officials serving in the department for more than three years will be transferred In the review meeting he stressed on clearing of files on priority basis and making the departments administration people-friendly Spent the morning with the Town Planning officials and chief town planners where I gave them clear directions for implementation of the decisions taken by the Board yesterday regardless of when the amendment its executed he tweeted after the meeting He said town planners and officials will be sent on frequent training programmes to be in sync with evolving national-international trends of developmental planning adding that restructuring in the department is required to improve efficiency among officials PTI RPS BNM BNM

Panaji Apr 18 PTI Three major industry associations in Goa have written to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant over load-shedding in the state and said they are willing to contribute to purchase additional power to tide over the situation The letter was sent to Sawant and state power minister Sudin Dhavalikar on Monday by Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industries GCCI Goa State Industries Association GSIA and Goa Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers Association GPMA Since March this year industries are facing acute power shortage due to constant load restrictions as much as 12 hours per day imposed by government To address deficit additional power will have to be purchased by the government However the rise in the traffic in the IEX market has increased the cost substantially and the government finds it difficult to bear this burden said the letter The letter said in order to tide over this situation the cost of purchasing this additional power may be billed to all EHT and HT extra high tension and high tension consumers in the state till June 30 The electricity department should bill only for actual additional power purchased for this period for avoiding load shedding and no other charges should be passed on to the consumer the letter added PTI RPS BNM BNM

Panaji Apr 18 PTI The Goa government is accelerating the process of setting up an electronic manufacturing cluster in the northern part of the state with the focus being on electric vehicles or mobile phones state information and technology minister Rohan Khaunte said on Monday He inspected the work underway for the EMC in Teum in North Goas Pernem taluka and said the plan was to have two anchor sectors like EVs or mobile phones with ancillary units coming up around them The EMC is coming up close to the new airport being built at Mopa and also has good road connectivity the minister said though he refused to give a deadline for its commissioning PTI RPS BNM BNM

Panaji Mar 21 PTI Goa on Monday did not report a single COVID-19 case or death leaving the tally and toll unchanged at 245253 and 3830 respectively a state health department official said With 539 samples being examined during the day the overall number of tests reached 1905595 he said The recovery count rose by two to touch 241369 leaving Goa with 54 active cases he added Goas COVID-19 figures Positive cases 245253 new cases 00 death toll 3830 discharged 241369 active cases 54 samples tested till date 1905595 PTI RPS BNM BNM

Panaji Dec 17 PTI The Goa polices Pink Force to respond to crime against women children and tourists was launched on Friday by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant The CM said the Pink Force would start in 11 police stations in the initial stage before being expanded to all units The all-women force has been trained to handle all kind of situations and would be working to prevent crime The force will be operational round the clock catering to women children and tourists he said PTI RPS BNM BNM