Agroup of Goan Padma Shri winners has come together to petition Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to not squander his opportunity to “set right all the misdeeds of previous Governments and start on a clean slate.” In a letter Padma Shri awardees from the State including fashion designer Wendell Rodricks, and Suresh Amonkar and Maria Aurora Couto and lawyer activist Norma Alvares have asked Parrikar to allocate more than the suggested 10 per cent of all mining sales and instead claim a full 100 per cent.
“The Supreme Court has directed that 10 per cent of the income earned from the sale of ore in future is to be deposited in a permanent fund… we feel that 10 per cent contribution from the asset sale is too small a sum to be the basis of which such a fund should be installed,” the four said in their letter suggesting that while the Supreme Court has suggested the “very minimum, the State Government can definitely increase the contribution such that a sizeable monetary asset is created in a short time.”
Permanent funds or sovereign wealth funds are a common feature in resource rich economies, where the capital of the fund is not touched but the interest is used for social sector benefits of the population.