BINAYAK DATTA
The State Budget for 2026 27 was proposed earlier this month. A Budget of the State for approval of ex penditures of Rs 30,000 crores is important and I felt it’s useful to try and understand the num bers, the thoughts that would have gone inside and finally where they all meet, what would be achieved and when. I propose I divide my discus sions into: i) The ambience and the Economic Survey 2026; ii) The actuals last year (RE 2025 26) and how they match with carryforwards of last year’s ac tions, with promises in the BJP manifesto of 2022, and with ex ternal benchmarks; iii) Setting the priorities and allocations for the Budget Year; and iv) What would be the touchpoints and who should be the action owners. i) The ambience as expressed in the Economic Survey 2025 – 26: Unfortunately, I didn’t find the Economic Survey 2025-26 in the public domain like in earli er years. According to sketchy reports available in the media, I understood we carry a debt burden of Rs 30,945 crores, up from 26,605 crores last year. A 16% increase over last year. Whereas our total expenses (Revenue + Capital) increased to 28,000 crores up from 25,000 crores last year—an increase of just 12%. Incidentally the GSDP growth is statedly at 14%! Just an observation. Debts are an issue. I’m not too happy with the policy state ment in the report where it states “rely on borrowings for funding development Projects.” I would rather a) cut down on fixed costs, which today are 65% of the total budgets (viz, estab lishments 12% of total Budget, salaries and staff costs 29%; subsidies at 3%; contributions at 5%; and debt servicing at 16%), or hit pause on construc tion of non-value-generating, non-productive assets eg. office buildings, or b) increase non-tax revenues (I will revert on this point later on). The other issue I think is the tremendous scope for improv ing the Foreign Tourists num bers, reported at just a paltry 5 lakhs! May be slightly better than last year but let’s look at the big picture: According to the Union Tourism Ministry, Mahar ashtra itself got 37 lakhs Foreign Tourist Visits (FTVs) last year, Gujarat got 23 lakhs and Ker ala 7.4 lakhs (2024) – that’s the scope! Third – the West Asian crisis is now over a month old. Spin off impacts on our State as well; there is a good need for increas ing actions on a) New and Re newable Energy; b) insulating inward remittances from NRIs; c) footfalls of FTVs and lastly ex ports from Pharma and Mining industries and Imports of Po tassic Fertilisers. These are big ticket numbers in Goa economy management and I do hope they are in cognisance somewhere in the Economic Survey. Fourth – AI Impacts ahead on Goa – in terms of employment, in terms of up-skilling of human resources and in terms of cheap er logistics in Pharma (Logistics “Hub” we often talked of), School and Middle Education. ii) The actuals last year (Re vised Estimates 2025-26): It’s most heartening to read that actions had begun on 99.3% of budget assurances made in 2025-26, with 77% expected to be fully implemented in the on going fiscal year. The remaining (mostly civil works/infra) are slated for 2026-27. More heart ening to note is the understood emphasis required on inter-de partmental coordination. Gathering stakeholder satis faction feedback on the Panjim Smart City Project Completion would be an appropriate step that budget managers would certainly want to examine closely. The current budget’s modest Rs 300 crore GSIDC allocation (vs Rs 1,640 crore pipeline) suggests implementation lag is somewhere a nagging issue (for instance). Overall, execution momentum appears good on paper, but de livery velocity (especially infra structure) remains an old itch generally in State Budgets. At the end – the Fiscal Defi cit Actuals last year shooting up by 1,200 crores more than its Budget is not a happy end ing to last years’ show, majorly from lesser collection of State’s Own Tax Revenue, over-spend ing in “Other Revenue spends,” and over-spending in “Capital spends.” Although the Fiscal Deficit is within the FRBM’s 4.4%, in my view in a normal year like the one gone, it’s best to keep borrowings and liabil ities strictly within Budgeted levels initially voted in the As sembly! An important appraisal in my view is the one thru the Voters’ eyes. For example, they were promised in the manifesto 2022, Mining Revival – I did not see much announcements and numbers there. Employments and “Goans First” in Tourism – what are the numbers there – what do the Voters say? Finally, where are we on the promised transformative “22-plus” devel opment particularly in Revenue Management, Health and Edu cation allocations and Green De velopment 2022-23? iii) Priorities of the Budget Year 2026-27 and Funding thereof: First let’s take a look at the proposals: If for example, fresh borrowings in the Budget Year increase by 34% how do we propose a lower Interest Charge in the budget next year, even marginally. I know the Central Government’s Long-Term Ad vance received is Interest-free but what about the older ex pensive loans since repayments shown are down also by 7%. Kudos for increase of alloca tions to “Education, Sports, Art and Culture” by a mighty 11% in the revenue expenditures side. I think a little shift in heads in ternally within this head would be good. Allocate for example working on a Konkani AI LLM. (Kerala, I saw wants to develop a Malayalam-First LLM (Large Language Model) next year! But the Capital Outlay remains a meagre 296 crore, an increase of just 1%. Take inflation and it’s gone! I couldn’t quite understand the cuts in Capital Outlays (com paring RE 2026) (-) 20% in Pub lic Works, (-) 12% in Health, just 1% positive in Education, Sports Art and Culture, (-) 14% in Agri and Allied Subjects; NO improve ments in New and Renewable Energy – contrary to the stated priorities in this sector. A 32% jump in “Power Projects” is good but I hope the sourcing of inputs works out post West Asia. There is a 10 X increase in Telecom and Electronic Industries’ outlay, I’m happy, but I hope this is a part of a bigger aggregate, spread over say a couple of years! And before I part, I spoke of two things parked for the end: a) Non-Tax Revenues – I think there has to be a concrete plan for training, rendering and charging for international-standards paid services in say Tourism, Mining and Health Care to start with. b) Service Level agreements re quired in place for monitoring, reporting and sharing results with stakeholders. The test of the Budget is few er supplementaries and greater public satisfaction in my view! (The author is a retired Finance professional)
