Times
of India: Mumbai: Sunday, 02 August 2015.
Maharashtra
Women and Child Welfare Minister Pankaja Munde tops the list of ministers
remaining absent from state cabinet meetings, a RTI query has revealed.
Other state
ministers who were high on absenteeism include PWD minister Eknath Shinde,
Health Minister Deepak Sawant, finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar and Social
Welfare minister Rajkumar Badole.
Barring chief
minister Devendra Fadnavis and water supply minister Babanrao Lonikar who have
attended all cabinet meetings, none have a 100 per cent track record, according
to the information provided to RTI activist Anil Galgali by the Chief Secretary
office.
Galgali had
filed a RTI query with the chief secretary office seeking details of the total
number of cabinet meetings held by the state government and the attendance of
ministers.
The Under
Secretary and the public information officer N B Khedekar informed Galgali that
since December 11, 2014 to June 23, 2015 a total of 28 cabinet meetings were
held.
Prior to
this, eight meetings were held in the period when the complete ministry was not
constituted. Out of the 18 ministers, barring CM Fadnavis and Lonikar rest 16
ministers have been absent in some or other cabinet meetings.
Pankaja
remained absent in 9 out of the 28 cabinet meetings, Eknath Shinde in 7, Deepak
Sawant in 6, Sudhir Mungantiwar in 5, Social Justice Minister Rajkumar Badole
in 5, Housing Minister Prakash Mehta in 4, Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam in
4, Higher and Technical minister Vinod Tawde in 3, Revenue Minister Eknath
Khadse in 3, and Energy Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule in 3.
Galgali
further sought to know if any advisory was given by Fadnavis to curb the
absenteeism, to which the CS office replied in negative stating it has no
record of the same.
The activist
also queried if there is any rule for removal of the minister for remaining
continuously absent from the cabinet meeting to which he was informed that no
such rule.
.JPG)
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