PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has been prudently managing, strengthening and overseeing the State finances by regularly holding meeting with officials of Finance Department and other line departments, deliberating on measures to augment revenue receipts, reducing liability and curtailing wasteful expenditure.
The Government has also adopted other measures to manage and strengthen its finances “ adopting of the TReDS (Trade Receivables Discounting System) mechanism, availing assistance from available Central Sector Schemes and Centrally sponsored schemes, undertaking activities under CSR, borrowings through different sources at lower interest rates etc, according to a release from Department of Information.
Goa is the first State Government in the country to adopt the TReDS mechanism for facilitating of payment to MSME contractors through the Receivables Exchange of India Limited (RXIL) platform. Through this system, till date, the Government has paid more than 480 bills received up to September 2020, worth more than Rs 410 crore within a short span of four months and is still effecting payments through this system.
Government also held several discussions with various banks to use this platform and facilitate payment to agencies. The quick support provided by Bank of Maharashtra in this regard needs to be appreciated. This mechanism allowed immediate liquidity support to all MSME agencies whose dues were pending for quite long time. This financial support to the agencies for capital works has increased the pace of various developmental activities in the State, despite the shadow of pandemic.
In the financial year 2020-21, the central government, due to Covid pandemic, allowed States to borrow additional 2% of GSDP. Out of this 2%, 1% was unconditional and remaining 1% was conditional based on carrying out of four reforms within the set deadlines by Central Government. These four reforms were One Nation One Ration Card implementation, Ease of Doing Business reforms, Urban Local Body reforms and Power Sector reforms.
The Government has fully achieved three reforms pertaining to One Nation One Ration Card, Ease of Doing Business and Urban Local Bodies and the reform pertaining to Power Sector has been achieved partially. This made the State of Goa eligible to an additional limit of 1.95% of GSDP i.e approx Rs 1800 crore, thus making Goa eligible for a net borrowing of Rs 4530 crore from initial limit of Rs 2677 crore.
The State of Goa was able to avail special assistance to the tune of Rs 97.66 crore from Central Government due to achievement of the above reforms under the scheme “Assistance to States for Capital Expenditure” which was used for Super Speciality Block, Irrigation and Sewerage projects.
As regards to borrowing from NABARD, the rural infrastructure development loans (RIDF) bear a low interest rate (currently 2.75%) as compared to SDLs. The Government has rightly focused on development of rural infrastructure and Goa was able to fully avail the set limit of Rs. 250 crore from NABARD for the year 2020-21 as against previous years’ drawal of Rs. 53.79 crores. The limit to avail assistance from NABARD has been increased to Rs. 350 crores in this financial year. By coordinating with NABARD, the limits of sanction have been increased to the State of Goa.
In order to maintain fiscal discipline, Government has targeted various loans which were taken earlier at high interest rates. Some loans, for example of GWMC amounting to Rs. 72 crores, were at high interest rates, as high as at 13%. This required to be revisited. The Government negotiated with various agencies from whom the amount had been availed and has successfully got the interest rates reduced to around 8%. Further some loans which were at high interest rates have either been refinanced with lower interest loans or prepaid with the surplus amount of the Government so as to effectively save the outflow from the exchequer on these loans.
Government supports its various organizations through grants which the organizations can use for various purposes. It was observed that certain organizations had kept the money idle lying with them over the years, thus not fulfilling any purpose. All such accounts totaling to approximately Rs. 200 crores were identified and it was ensured that this amount was used for fruitful purposes. The Corporations were also directed to spend these unutilized amounts for the welfare of the public through their activities.
The Government, for the first time also set up the “Goa CSR Authority”, under Rule 4(2)(b) of the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility) Rules. The purpose of this Authority is to mobilize the CSR contributions from various companies and channelize the same with the sectoral priorities of the Government. The authority has received CSR contributions from various Companies. An appeal is also made to all companies to generously contribute to this authority for the various welfare activities undertaken the Government.
Government also actively coordinated with central government to avail assistance from available central sector schemes and centrally sponsored schemes. There were various schemes of Government of India which the State had availed but the fund flow was blocked due to non-submission of Utilization Certificates apart from other necessary compliances.
The status was reviewed with each department and the fund flow was streamlined by submitting compliance to the requirements of Government of India, thereby utilising the funds under various schemes lying unutilized over the years for their designated purposes.
The percentage of funds utilized over the funds released has improved drastically to more than 96% as against 51% some years back. Further, many proposals have been referred to Central Government under other schemes, which is being pursued actively with Central Government for sanction.
