PANAJI
In what could come as relief to people, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday said the Value Added Tax (VAT) component on fuel and water bills may be reduced.
He said his government, besides reducing water bills, will go soft on penal action, including disconnection of supply for non-payment.
He said the VAT reduction on petrol will give people relief in the wake of a sustained spike in prices of petrol and diesel over the last one year of the pandemic.
Sawant told the House: “Government will try reducing (the) state’s share of VAT imposed on petrol and petroleum products, whenever possible.”
Prices of diesel and petrol are hovering around Rs 85.66 and Rs 88.27 respectively
Sawant made the remarks in a written reply to a query from St Andre MLA Francisco Silveira.
The Chief Minister also said his government will give water supply consumers in the state relief by reducing water bills and going soft on penal action including disconnection of supply for non-payment.
Sawant told the House during Question Hour that he has issued instructions to the Public Works Department (PWD) to refrain from taking penal action including disconnecting meters of consumers who fail to pay one-off bills.
The state-of-the-art abattoir of the State-owned Goa Meat Complex is likely to be outsourced to private parties to offset the shortage of beef in the State owing to strict restrictions on slaughter and trade in neighbouring Karnataka and Maharashtra.
The State government is “studying the possibility” of outsourcing the legal abattoir used for the slaughter of animals to private companies so as to make the supply of beef in the local markets stable, Sawant said in a written reply.
Mauvin Godinho, who holds the Animal Husbandry portfolio, said the modern abattoir at Usgao could be leased to private companies for ten years.
Sawant and Godinho's written replies were in response to an unstarred question tabled by Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco.
The Curtorim MLA had sought to know why the State's abattoir is not operational to its capacity and when it would function normally.
Sawant, meanwhile, said the ban on slaughter and transport of animals in both the neighbouring states was making it difficult to put a definite time frame for the GMC's abattoir to go fully operational.
The chief minister, however, claimed that there was no shortage of beef in Goa, where daily consumption is pegged in the region of 25 tonnes. The red meat, much of which is consumed by the hospitality sector in Goa, was mostly sourced from Karnataka before the BJP government in that State imposed the ban.
Also, in reply to a query from Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao, Sawant said seventeen vehicles had been seized at the border check-posts for illegally transporting liquor over the last four-year period.
To another question from Alemao whether the State government was intending to raise the quantum of excise duties on alcohol or if the Centre had a proposal to bring spirit under the GST regime, Sawant said there the Excise department has no such proposal or received any communication from the Centre to that effect.
