Goa Fisheries Corpus Fund Fraud

All Goa Small Scale Responsible Fisheries Union

08 September 2023

To,

The Secretary ( Fisheries )

Government of Goa,

Porvorim, Goa

Subject: Follow up to our 28/08/2023 meeting with you regarding corpus funds irregularities etc.

Sir,

Please find following annexed RTI doccuments we received from Goa Fisheries department attached with this letter:

1. Minutes of the 5th meeting of Corpus fund scrutiny committee held on 10 November 2020.

2. Minutes of the 4th meeting of the managing committee of the corpus fund held on 17 May 2023. Participation of Shri Francisco Braganza at the meeting has no gazzetted appointment. Hence this meeting is invalid and all the decions taken at this meeting are invalid. This include decision to overlook payment of five instalments by Sanjay Faterpekar to his cannoe that got burned in accidental fire on 19 March 2023. Sanjay Faterpekar is sanctioned Rs. 40,000/- at this meeting based on only two installments out of five he paid totally. Director of Fisheries has agreed on meeting with us on 21 August 2023 that this is a mistake by the managing committee but there is no provision in the scheme to do the correction. We find this position ridiculous. From discussions with him we realized that corpus fund scheme was amended after collecting two instalments for fishing net insurance and collected amount was never returned to the fishermen. We however understood that if department desires corpus fund scheme can be amended to suit specific needs. You are therefore requested to pay attention to this issue and if necessary, bring about necessary Ammendment in the corpus fund scheme to ensure that Sanjay Faterpekar gets justice by getting remaining Rs. 60,000/- without any further delay and procedural hurdles like corpus fund having no provisions to effect corrections to the mistakes committed by the managing committee.

3. Gazzate notification dated 23 May 2023 where in this corpus fund was created through scheme "Natural Calamity Relief to Fishermen" wherein accidental fire is covered. We attach this document to you to prove wrong the statement of Mr. Chandrakant Velip, deputy director of Fisheries department at our above refered meeting with you on 28 August 2023 wherein he stated that accidental fire to cannoes are not covered under this scheme. Mr. Velip has involved in deliberate act of providing false information to you in our presence and you are requested to initiate action against him for acting against traditional small scale fishing communities interests and intimate us about the same. There are number of other such mischief he has played with us and if need we will create record and present to you. Do let us know.

Thanking you,

Yours Truly, 

Shaila D'mello

President

Laximan Mangueshkar 

Secretary