Says prudent expenditure management helped tide over crisis
TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The state government is going through a “very, very hard phase” owing to the stoppage of mining and the State treasury has taken a resultant hit of Rs 800-odd crore, due to shortfall in revenue, Chief Secretary B Vijayan has said.
“We are in the process of preparing next year’s budget and we are having a hard look at whatever has been happening and we realise we are going through a very, very hard phase. Our targeted revenue collection, mobilisation from the mining royalty was about Rs 1,000 crore. But so far we were able to get only Rs 350 crore. The stoppage has resulted in a shortfall of Rs 650 crore,” the Chief Secretary said, adding that if one were to count the other sources of revenue such a transport, etc, the estimated total hit was around Rs 800 crore this fiscal.
Vijayan however said that the government has been prudent in expenditure management, which is how they have managed this year.
“It is prudent expenditure management that has helped us tide over this crisis. We have been successful to a large extent on cutting down on wasteful expenditure. We have even pulled back expenses which we thought can be postponed to the next year,” Vijayan said adding that the e-governance in the tendering process has also yielded results, with all the tenders being quoted below the estimated price.
He said that given that next year too the state government is likely to face a similar situation, he stressed the need to fall back on alternative sources of income.
“We have to go back to alternate sources of generating revenue some of which have already been finalised and at the same time we’re going to show that major activities of the government are not affected in the process,” Vijayan said.
The chief secretary was speaking at the State Credit Seminar to launch the State Focus Paper 2013-14 identifying the potential available for financing in the State under agriculture and allied sectors, organized by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Regional Office, Panjim, on Tuesday. He also urged NABARD to study the uniqueness of economics of Goa’s agriculture sector.
Deputy Chairman of State Planning Board, Dattaprasad Kholkar stressed the need to strengthen the cooperative network and infrastructure in rural areas for progress of the state.
Agriculture secretary V.P. Rao, Regional Director of the Reserve Bank of India J B Bhora, Ulhas Phaldessai spoke and A Sherkhane, Addl. Secretary Finance and Dr SD Kulkarni, GM, NABARD was present on the occasion.
