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Journalism of Courage
NAGPUR, DECEMBER 15: The Congress-NCP government has decided to set up a state-level vigilance commission on the line of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to curb corruptions in administration, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh announced in the legislative assembly here on Wednesday.
The chief minister believed that this would go a long way in bringing about transparency in administration. The leader of the Opposition and chief justice of Bombay High Court would be consulted for appointing the head of the proposed state vigilance commission, he further informed.
Deshmukh also hinted that the new government was planning to set up a finance corporation for backward Muslims in the state. There was a demand from the Muslim community to set up such financial corporation to help backward Muslims in Maharashtra, he explained.
Defending the restoration of the Minority Commission, which was scraped by the Manohar Joshi government, the chief minister said that if there could be financial corporations for dalits and nomadic tribes in the state, why not one for backward Muslims. Such a corporation could be named after Moulana Azad, he added.
Leader of Opposition, Nitin Gakdari was however not too pleased with the idea. "Why not name it after Osama Bin Laden ?", he is supposed to have retorted.
The chief minister took the opportunity to reiterate that the state was verge of bankruptcy and informed the house that the government was paying Rs 7,000 crore as loan interests, which had been borrowed from different financial agencies.
The government had borrowed Rs 38,000-crore from different financial agencies so far. Of them, Rs 22,000-crore had been borrowed during the four-and-a-half-year tenure of the Sena-BJP combine, he said and pointed out that it was very difficult to undertake a new developmental project.
The government would bring out the white paper on the financial status of hte state government and table it before the legislature next week, he promised.
