If one were to believe Yashwant Sinha, the Indian economy is in a mess. A few days after Sinha wrote in a national daily, no one has come up with a credible defence of the state of economic affairs. It looks, therefore, that India is indeed facing a slowdown.
Closer home, in Goa, the situation is no different, as trade after trade has complained about the lack of demand in the market. A visit to any major market in Goa confirms a near certain slowdown in the market. There were hardly any shoppers in the market even around the festive occasion of Dussehra.
Similarly, even before Ganesh Chaturthi, shop-keepers were waiting anxiously for customers, but their wait was ultimately in vain. From these signals, it appears that Goa is heading straight for a winter of slowdown.
Ironically enough, BJP had complained of policy-paralysis when Congress was in power at the centre, but, when BJP came into power, its own policies like demonetisation and trouble ridden implementation of Goods-and-Services-Tax (GST) have brought the Indian and Goan economy to a halt.
Consider, for a second, how tax rates on automobiles were haphazardly changed by the GST Council. Upon realising that initially taxes were fixed at lower levels for mid-sized, luxury cars and sports-utility-vehicles (SUVs), the GST Council increased taxes on these vehicles by anywhere between 2% to 7%.
Due to this move, price of premium cars increased by lakhs in some cases in September compared to August. Auto dealers across Goa have complained that customers have lost confidence in the market. It's this confidence, which several stakeholders had lost, when Congress was in power at the Centre. The BJP government at the Centre clearly has badly affected the confidence, much like Congress.
Real-estate is another sector, where builders are still grappling with GST and the Real Estate Regulation and Development Act (RERA). This is to such an extent that certain builders have complained that the construction activity in the state can come to a halt soon.
Even in other sectors, GST has resulted in much confusion. Although price of most products has not changed significantly due to GST, but still, customers are apprehensive, as there are misconceptions that price of certain products has gone up. This has resulted in bad blood between the traders and the customers.
And, now, just before the start of the tourism season, most charter flights, which bring foreign tourists, have not been allotted landing slots at Dabolim Airport. Tourism stakeholders were expecting high growth in the upcoming season, but now, they are staring at a steep decline in the number of foreign travellers. All in all, Goa appears to be heading for a hard landing. That is unless some serious corrective action is taken to prevent the inevitable from happening.
