At a time when the industry needed a renewed sense of direction from Chief Minister Pramod Sawant in his Budget, he decided to propose mostly old schemes and that too without outlining his vision. To that extent, Sawant was no different from his predecessors. During the Budget, the tendency has always been to talk about things, which make an impression on the people, or rather the vote bank. And this time, too, the CM used the Budget as an opportunity to talk about social schemes and agriculture, with nothing substantial for the industry.
That being the reason, politicians tend to focus less on industry. But at the end of the day, industry employs people and gives them source of livelihood. And, therefore, maximum importance must be accorded to industry in the Budget exercise. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Consider Sawant’s proposals pertaining to industry: more services for industries will be made online, shuttle service buses from distant locations to industrial estates, expedite setting up of Tuem ESDM park and focus on eco/hinterland/medical/adventure tourism.
None of these proposals are new. In fact, Tuem ESDM park was one of the flagship projects of the previous State Government as well, but not much progress was made on it. For a long time, the government is talking about promoting hinterland areas for tourism without really succeeding.
It’s not bad to talk about old ideas, but it would have been better if Sawant had asked his departments why they had failed miserably to implement the old schemes. If he had asked the departments in so many words, they would have been compelled to give him some sort of an explanation and then he could have outlined his vision.
From the budget speech, it seems that has not happened. In fact, the bureaucrats are more responsible for giving the same old proposals in the Budget without doing any stock-taking on what groundwork was done on them. For instance, the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) had made a proposal to the government years ago requesting it to relax licensing rules so that people in the hinterland can carry out tourism activities.
A professional budget exercise should involve making all departments responsible for lack of action on old schemes/proposals/ideas. Only then should new ideas be considered. As far as industries are concerned, this seems to be lacking. The industrialists in the State are not happy. Despite being in existence for 6 years, the Investment Promotion Board (IPB) is still not a single-window for all clearances. Businessmen are still running behind government departments for all licences.
Sawant should have outlined his vision on one of these issues. Moving ahead, it remains to be seen if the CM gives a sense of direction to industry or not.
