Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, despite the constraints of time, tabled an elaborate feel-good budget for 2022-23 focussed on Swayampurna Goem, and key segments like health, IT, tourism, industries, infrastructure and employment. However, a closer look at the figures enforces the fact that the CM has smartly juggled numbers, sops and schemes, mixing some old ones with new ones to create an illusion that is far from reality.
The allocations that are done to sectors like health, education, tourism and others are so alluring that momentarily one tends to forget the fact that Goa is a state that is struggling with its consistently widening fiscal deficit which is crossing Rs 20,000 crore. So, when the CM puts a projection of clearing debt of Rs 1,282 cr towards this year’s principal amount along with Rs 1,988 cr interest, it sounds baffling.
Once again, Sawant creates a fantasy of a Rs 434.30 cr surplus budget without the supporting figures. There is no fine print to this script and which is why there is a high level of scepticism in numbers that do not add up. Also, we have seen what the State has gone through in the past two years and the austerity that the government had called for to make ends meet.
Budgetary proposals in recent times have the appearance of election manifestos and tend to create a mirage of well-being in the minds of common citizens. Year after year Goa has seen allocations and superfluously unrealistic promises. Statistics reveal that the government could fulfil only around 46 per cent of the budget promises of last year and that explains the story. Agreed, Sawant has come into the spotlight once again after a tough election and needed such grandiose optics to take the people of Goa along. But he could have done this in a much better way by bringing forth the challenges faced and then reassuring with his famous slogan ‘Bivpachi Garaz Na’. It would have been far relevant if the CM had to spell out ways of dealing with situations in which Goa currently finds itself.
On the contrary, Sawant has gone showering goodies everywhere and pleasing everyone without any revenue projections. While refraining from levying additional taxes, he plans to leverage the proposals with reforms and plugging revenue leakages and probably hoping to get some support in the form of grant-in-aid from the Centre. In reality, this appears a humongous task, given the background that Goa’s revenue streams are currently unstable, and the resumption of mining remaining a distant dream.
The need of the hour is to have a clear financial plan and a budget will be always incomplete without it. It’s time to embrace the harsh reality, instead of living in a false reality. Thanks to the doctor CM, “Bivpachi garaz na” has been a motivational slogan that has given hope to many in times of distress, more especially in Covid times. We only wish the same translates on to the fiscal management of the State in the true sense of the words.
