PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday presented a Rs 24,467.4 crore annual budget for the upcoming 2022-23 fiscal envisaging a revenue surplus of Rs 434.30 crore but an alarming fiscal deficit of Rs 3,603.10 crore.
There is no change in the budget’s taxation proposals although Sawant said he proposes to introduce reforms to ensure revenue leakages are plugged and additional resources are mobilised.
He also said that he expects funds from the Centre to the tune of Rs 5,982.88 crore including from the State’s share in Central taxes as well as grant-in-aid and soft loans.
Some of the major thrust areas in the budget presented by Sawant are public health, education and power, where allocations have been substantially increased and some new projects proposed.
In public health, for instance, Sawant has hiked allocations by over 12 per cent to Rs 1970.20 crore and proposed two 50-bedded critical care hospitals located in each of the State’s two districts.
Also, a tertiary cancer care unit at the Goa Medical College and Hospital with a total outlay of Rs 247 crore has been provided Rs 173-crore capital and will be equipped to offer advanced surgical and medical oncology treatment for all types of cancers.
The Education sector has been allocated Rs 3,850.98 crore with proposals to renovate schools, upgrade science labs in 350 schools and also upgrade sports infrastructure in these 350 schools.
Sawant has also introduced compulsory registration of all pre-primary schools, hitherto a gray area in the State’s pre-primary education.
Similarly, Sawant has made an allocation of Rs 3,230.50 crore for the Power and Renewable Energy sector and proposed two new 33 KV substations at Tuem and Mandrem and conversion of existing overhead conductors to underground cabling across the State progressively. Also two 220 KV GIS substations are proposed at Saligao and Loutolim.
To promote clean energy, Rs 10 crore has been earmarked to continue the 50 per cent subsidy scheme for solar rooftop power units for residential areas and another Rs 25-crore to finance the scheme for subsidy to purchase electric vehicles.
Some other major budgetary allocations include Rs 2,099.80 crore for the Public Works Department, Rs 1,188.03 crore for Home including police department, Rs 721.72 crore for WRD, Rs 404.13 crore for panchayati raj, Rs 247 crore for tourism, Rs 153.42 crore for Art and Culture and Rs 434.34 crore for Women and Child development.
Addressing the media later, Sawant said the budget he presented focuses on ‘Swayampurna Goa 2.0’ besides employment generation, mining and ease of doing business.
He also said, the rules under the Gambling Act will be tweaked to overhaul the rules and regulations ecosystem for the Casino sector but he did not go into the specifics.
He also said that a fleet of 35 new ferry boats will be introduced to replace the currently in operation boats which are old.
Another significant budgetary provision made by Sawant is Rs 100 crore allocated for flood mitigation measures along banks of vulnerable rivers.
