the goan I network
PANAJI
Goa’s economic survey for 2019-20 released by the State government planning and statistics department on Wednesday painted a rosy 9.82 per-cent growth rate for Gross State Domestic Product in the 2018-19 fiscal. It said the GSDP for 2018-19 (quick estimates) is above Rs 66,781.05 crores as against Rs 56,761.84 crores the previous year (2017-18).
Despite constant reports of a declining fiscal position of the State, the Economic Survey however asserts that the flow of cash into the State Exchequer is heading north, continuously.”There is a continuous increase in revenue receipts of the State,” the survey which was placed on the table of the House by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday, said.
The survey said, revenue receipts for the current fiscal, which still has another 50-odd days for it to end, is estimated to scale the Rs 12,193.79 crores mark, adding that it will be about 15.80 per cent higher than what it was in 2018-19.
The survey also pegged growth of tax revenues of 10.12 per cent in 2019-20. The State’s own taxes are increasing at 9.06 per cent and the revenue surplus is expected to be Rs 455.10 crore, it added.
The State’s gross public debt, a subject of much worry for the mandarins in the finance department, meanwhile has been shown by the survey to be continuously rising.
It points out that the fiscal deficit has been fluctuating and in 2019-20 it is estimated to be Rs 1,418.65 cr.
The survey said, 39 per-cent of the aggregate Rs 11,739 crores of revenue expenditure in the current fiscal is being gobbled up by payment of salaries to the nearly 65,000 strong army of government employees and several thousand more pensioners.
As much as 13 per-cent of the expenditure goes in paying back principal and interest of past loans availed by the State and the balance 48 per-cent goes into administrative expenditure and other government expenses like advertisements and such other, the survey said.
