Senior official R K Pandita gets additional charge as Goa's chief town planner

Panaji, May 6 (PTI) Days after Goa's chief town planner Rajesh Naik was suspended, the state government has given senior bureaucrat R K Pandita the additional charge of the key post with immediate effect.

Durga Kinlekar, Under Secretary (Personnel), in a May 5 order, has designated Pandita to hold the post of Goa's chief town planner (planning) until further orders.

Pandita, senior town planner in the town and country planning department, will hold the charge in addition to his current duties, according to the order.

The appointment comes a week after Directorate of Vigilance suspended then-chief town planner Naik for alleged irregularities in calculating conversion fees while processing applications for change of zone under Goa's contentious Town and Country Planning Rules.

The suspension came after activists approached the Bombay High Court at Goa, demanding action against the chief town planner for allegedly causing loss of several crores of rupees to the exchequer by undervaluing assessment fees for correction of a zone. PTI RPS RSY