PANAJI: The government is all set to issue a notification for the appointment of an estate officer for preparing inventory as regards the government assets in the state, their proper documentation as well as their protection in the long run.

The decision comes in the wake of a related assurance given to the state assembly by the Chief Minister, Mr Digambar Kamat in his budget speech, earlier this year.

Discussing land asset management for the state, in his financial statement for the year 2010-11, the Chief Minister had said, "It has come to my observation that lots of land is acquired by the government for various purposes through various departments. However, as time passes the departments fail to keep track of such acquired lands, which more often than not are encroached upon."

"In order to avoid illegal encroachments, possess complete information of all such acquired lands/ properties, and to create a data base of the state’s assets, I propose to appoint an estate officer for the purpose," the Chief Minister had added.

A highly placed source in the Secretariat informed this daily that till date, there existed estate officers in handful of government departments like Goa Industrial Development Corporation, Goa Tillari Irrigation Development Corporation, forest department and so on. "However, most of the government departments had no such posts, and hence possessed no information about their respective assets," it added.

It was also found that there exists number of cases wherein government forest land has been registered in the name of private parties. Furthermore, documentary evidences as regards government ownership of such forest lands have also been destroyed. This is one of the major reasons for creation of the post of an estate officer by the government.

The government also proposes to create the posts of estate officers in all its departments, and these departmental estate officers will directly work under the chief estate officer.

Speaking further, the secretariat source informed that a senior officer of the Goa Civil Service cadre would soon be appointed as the estate officer.

"A special cell will be created for the Estate Officer under the revenue department," it noted.

The assets of the state government including official land belonging to the government, other government property including buildings, government property under dispute, encroached government land, and so on will be listed in the form of an inventory by the estate officer. The same would be later documented for future use by various government departments as well as public, in general.