NT NETWORK
PANAJI
Goa Konkani Academy (GKA) chairman Madhav Borkar and its vice-chairman Jose Lawrenco on Wednesday resigned on the grounds that the academy did not receive enough funds for various Konkani language promotional activities.
“There was no proper flow of funds for last 3 to 4 years, whatever was sanctioned to us we never got and the money we got was only to spend for office maintenance, staff salary and very little remained for other activities,” said Borkar.
He said that the academy could not organise important programmes like Yuva Sahitya Sammelan, workshop on publication and annual literary award due to irregular sanction of funds.
“To conduct workshop on publication we had to invite experts from Mumbai for which we required a budget of Rs 70,000 and for annual literary award we required not less than Rs 15 lakh,” said Borkar.
He said that GKA despite being an autonomous body there is no autonomy and no cooperation from government for fund allotment.
“If GKA is an autonomous body then why approval was required from all levels,” he questioned.
Refuting the charges made by Borkar, Dr Parkash Vazrikar director of directorate of official language claimed that the government had sanctioned sufficient funds for GKA to conduct its programmes, wherein the unused money was even returned back to the government.
“For the year 2015-16, the government sanctioned Rs 1.10 crore to GKA out of which Rs 10 lakh went back to the government. Similarly for the year 2016-17, Rs 1.13 crore was sanctioned to the GKA and of this Rs 23 lakh went back to the government as unutilised funds,” said Dr Vazrikar.
He said that a letter was written to GKA in February 2017, asking them to furnish the details of the utilised funds for which GKA has failed to reply.
