PANAJI, June 8: The special meeting of the Goa Cabinet convened today to discuss the power rebate scandal involving Minister for Power Mauvin Godinho has paved the way for the Minister's prosecution by refusing to ratify a controversial amendment which has benefitted about 65 industrial units in the state.The Cabinet has also resolved to recover the money granted as rebate to the units since 1995 though it is not yet clear exactly how much has been gifted away."The government has decided to honour its commitments to the industry on the power rebate from 1991 to 1995," Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane said at a press briefing today.The notification granting a five-year rebate to low and high tension consumers of power, which was first promulgated in 1991, was rescinded by the Cabinet in early 1995. However, the Power Ministry under Mauvin Godinho amended the rescinded notification in 1996 without the amendments being ratified by the Cabinet.Subsequently, at least 65 units in the low, high andextra-high tension categories (the last category was included by Godinho's ministry in the amendment) applied for rebate worth Rs 15 crore. Though it is not clear how much of the rebate has actually been disbursed, the sums claimed by these units will have to be returned to the government as per today's Cabinet decision. The meeting saw Rane and Godinho retreating in the face of an onslaught led by Deputy Chief Minister Wilfred D'Souza and other senior ministers, who fear a defeat for the Congress on account of the scandal. Goa's Assembly elections are due in the next 18 months. The Bharatiya Janata Party led by its MLA, Manohar Parrikar, is keen on a bigger slice of the electoral cake and is expected to hit the streets with corruption as an issue particularly if a charge-sheet is filed against Godinho. Parrikar has filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the Minister and investigations are underway.Both Godinho and Chief Electrical Engineer T Nagarajan have been named as accused in the FIR.
