Million rupee questions
Every year, regardless who presents the Goa Budget, one of the highlights of the event is the briefcase in which the Budget documents are circulated to legislators and the media. In a way this reflects the reality of our official Budget exercises—packaging matters more than substance. As long as those who matter are kept happy, no one will really probe too deep.
In the clutter of facts and figures, one could well get lost in the jungle of numbers. Besides, Goa has been following the practice—continued year on year for some time now, regardless of who is in power—of presenting a ‘vote in account’ and postponing the full Budget discussion by a few months. This makes the whole exercise only more meaningless. Instead of having a full-fledged discussion when the issue is fresh in mind, delaying the same only means it gets far less attention than it deserves.
Out of every rupee spent from the government exchequer, 62 paisa will go towards salaries and pensions, debt servicing, the establishment, grants-in-aid and other transfers. So what’s left to invest in the future? Is the economy to run on the wheels of salaries and subsidies?
There are so many “schemes’ included in the government Budget, but most would not even know of their existence, or how effectively these are run. What’s worse is the element of subjectivity involved in distributing patronage and official largess. How does the government decide which 50 high schools — from among the hundreds operating in Goa—are to get financial assistance to purchase art material?
Clearly, much of the State’s funds go simply to maintain its bloated bureaucracy. Likewise, the sliding delays in implementing public projects are also obvious, even though public memory is short. For instance, the Budget promises that the Central Library’s new building “will be completed tentatively by the end of the year 2010” and the South Goa district library will cater to the public “shortly”. Can the taxpayer expect more specific deadlines?
Official intent and promises from politicians are one thing; what is needed is for intent to show up in the figures, and for the citizen to feel a qualitative difference in his and her lives. We need to be reassured that growth isn’t being fuelled by mind-boggling debt, or the destruction of Goa’s ecology and sustainable lifestyles. Economics is particularly inept at valuing the priceless legacy of nature, and the traditional lifestyles which don’t revolve around crores of rupees.
Along with the Budget, the audit report presented for the year ended March 31, 2009 also deserves attention. While the Comptroller and Auditor General’s office in Goa has been coming out with some hard-hitting facts and figures in recent years, the ‘big picture’ of what’s going wrong with Goa’s governance hasn’t yet adequately emerged. Bureaucrats get the occasional rap for the decisions they’ve taken, but the political class gets off scot-free as it leaves no trail behind.
Some figures from the CAG which deserve special attention:
KTC’s average number of vehicles held has shrunk from 427 in 2006 to 398 in 2009! The pilot prawn hatchery project (at Benaulim) is virtually a dead idea, after years of pumping taxpayer money into it. Goa’s politicians’ bias towards mining becomes clear from its non-assessment of imported mineral ore, lacunae over the Goa Rural Improvement Welfare Cess, and non-levy of cess in respect of iron ore generated in Goa. Likewise, the government conveniently “failed” to notify coastal villages under the Goa Land Revenue Code, resulting in a short levy of conversion fees. This is just the tip of the iceberg, from all signs.
If Goa expects its government to work with less inefficiency, then it is time for citizens’ groups to take Budget analysis more seriously. Let us not pretend that the media is best equipped for such a task, or even capable of doing justice in the tiny window of a few hours available before rushing to press.
