Goa has lost Assembly records from 1963 to 2000: Sawant

Panaji, June 27 (IANS) Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Monday said that assembly records of post liberation got destroyed, while shifting the old secretariat from age-old Adil Shah Palace in Panaji to new assembly complex at Porvorim in 2000."When I became the speaker of Goa assembly, I came to know that these records were destroyed. I wanted to preserve them. But they were destroyed. I am sorry, this should not happen. Now since 2000, we are preserving and digitisation of the same is done," Sawant said."Goa assembly has a long history since 1963. Be it defections, governments of 15 days or 13 days, these references are used by other assemblies. This is on record at present. For this, we need documentation and digitisation," Sawant said."All records should be digitised. Goa assembly started in 1963. I had plans to digitiSe it (records) through CDs and other formats, so that in future, new MLAs can use them. But very sorry to say that while shifting of secretariat, the records were destroyed," he reiterated."There are no records from the old secretariat. I really felt very bad. Someone told them to destroy it as they were not needed. If today we want to go through speeches of first Chief Minister Bhausaheb Bandodkar or former Minister Kashinath Jalmi then we don't have it. Their records are not available, which had forced me to ask All India Radio to provide some records of Bhausaheb Bandodkar," Sawant said."They should have preserved it. Those records were needed," Sawant further said.
--IANS sanjay/pgh

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