PANAJI
In the three years after the Covid pandemic disrupted economic activity, the Goa government relied heavily on costly, short tenure market loans, borrowing upwards of Rs 2,000 crore at a hefty 7.6% interest rates in 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2022-24.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who holds the finance portfolio, told the recent Budget Session of the Goa legislative assembly that his government took market loans worth Rs 2,000 crore in 2021-22.
The tenure of these loans, taken in eighteen trenches of Rs 100 crore and twice Rs 200 crore, is 10 years and bear an interest rate varying between 6.85% and 7.35%.
Sawant's written response to a query posed by Benaulim MLA Venzy Viegas, also states that similar 10-year tenure loans were taken by his government in 2022-23 aggregating Rs 1,600 crores. This year, the interest rates were marginally higher by up to one percentage point and the loans were taken in thirteen tranches, twelve of them of Rs 100 crore and one of Rs 200 crore.
The next year (2023-24) the Sawant government's market borrowings were at an even higher level at Rs 2,550 crore, again in tranches of Rs 100 crores each.
