Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced on Wednesday that religious conversions of Hindus in the coastal state had ceased within 100 days of his government taking office.
During the ‘100 Days of Action’ program in Panaji on Wednesday, Sawant released a booklet on the work done by the BJP’s ‘double engine government’.
The Goa CM also launched the revamped Public Grievance Portal, SMS Intimation Service for a number of government schemes, and distributed Land Rights Sanad under the Forest Rights Act to beneficiaries during the event.
According to him, “Our government has taken a tough stance on religious conversion. We stopped the conversion of Hindus…which was happening earlier.”
“Religious conversions happening for years have been stopped…We formed SIT to look into illegal land acquisition matter,” he added.In May, Sawant said the BJP government had allocated Rs 20 crore for restructuring and restoring temples and heritage sites destroyed during the Portuguese era.
Regarding the tourism sector, Sawant said online approval and registration services have been launched for all types of permissions to be renewed. The Goa CM said that these services were launched to make doing business easier for stakeholders.
Despite being affected by three COVID-19 waves, the tourism sector in Goa has witnessed steady growth, he said, adding, “Even after three coronavirus waves, 19,40,683 domestic and 33,841 foreign tourists visited Goa from March 2022 to May 2022.”
Additionally, the Goa Chief Minister said the state government is preparing to take over 88 leases whose renewal was cancelled by the Supreme Court in 2018 and to conduct e-auctions for these and other leases. While talking about the mining sector, Sawant said, “The government took a proactive step and initiated the process to take over the 88 leases. It is also geared up to begin the process of e-auctioning of mining leases.
