The eighth session of the fifth legislative assembly begins at 11.30am on Monday, July 20. Also referred to as the budget session, it will last for 15 working days and end on August 7. The highlight will be chief minister Digambar Kamat, who is also the finance minister, making his additional budget speech during the session.

Kamat had presented a vote on account for five months during the assembly session in March. While two days will be devoted to general discussions on the budget, 10 days have been allotted to detailed discussions on the demands and three Fridays have been allotted to private members' bills.

Legislature secretary J Braganza said there are a total of 1,440 legislative assembly questions to be asked during the budget session. Of these, 786 are starred and 654 are unstarred questions.

The legislature department has so far received one private member's bill: an ammendment to the Goa Public Gambling Act, by opposition leader Manohar Parrikar. Through his bill, Parrikar seeks to put an additional section 13 B in order to facilitate the appointment of a regulator to look into the functioning of casinos.

Parrikar told TOI that the regulator will monitor casinos and allow only tourists and selected Goans with income levels of Rs 10 lakh per annum into casinos. The regulator will be empowered to look into other aspects of the functioning of casinos like pushing them out of the river Mandovi, Parrikar said.

For the first week of the budget session, the legislature department has so far received eight resolutions, of which only five will be balloted. More resolutions are expected in the days to come.