The Goa Budget came last week, and I thought I’ll look at this document from the points of acknowledged competences of the State, duly read in context of tasks and benchmarks. The documents are well in detail. Let’s examine:
a) The backgrounds: Global headwinds in terms of demands and prices particularly increased tariff-wars in components and automotive tyres and impacts on exports, price increase of medicines, reduction of GST rates expected, would play their roles in forward Financial Statements. The State Economic Survey 2025 reveals there is plenty of improvement opportunities particularly in areas of Manufacturing where our CAGR for the 5 years 2019-20 to 2023-24 is hardly 1.23% where the corresponding GSVA (Constant Prices), increased by 3%. Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing increased by just 2.4%. Hotels and Restaurants by just 2.2%, and Transport by only 0.7%. The chunk of the increase comes from Construction 7.8%, Real Estates 4.1% and Public Administration12.2% inspite of efforts for digitalisation, efficiency improvements and ‘minimum government’!
b) Of commitments and targets: I understood from press reports, actions have been initiated on 441 out of 446 budget assurances of last year, five assurances are on hold and around 112 of the 279 different works have been completed so far. I will let the matter rest.
c) The tasks ahead towards a “Viksit Bharat 2047”
Of the Viksit Bharat 2047 and deployment of Targets there-in (to recapitulate, $30 trillion economy against todays’ $3 trillion nationally) and per-capita of $18000 (against today’s $3000 nationally) by 2047; would translate to Rs 12 lakh crores of GSDP and Rs 40 lakhs of per capita in Goa at today’s prices. In my view, there has to be State-wise targets deployed across States for ownership, reporting and accountability.
The Ruling Party’s State manifesto of 2022 promises an economy of $50 bln by 2032, which translates to Rs 4.25 lakh crores). I didn’t find a roadmap in the Budget for 2025-26.
We’re never-the-less assured by the government, that the State shall achieve “Viksit Goa” by 2037 itself, 10 years in advance of the Country as a whole! Remarkable!
d) Actual performance of last year (revised estimates) 2024-25: The Budget papers show, Revenue Receipts Revised fall short in Tax and Non-Tax Revenues by a huge sum of 303 crores compounded by lesser Grants-in-Aid from Centre 407 crores and shares in Central Taxes better by 260 crores and an overspending of Revenue Expenditure Budgets by 173 crores. So, Revenue Surplus was short as shown by Rs 623 crores.
Just one word of caution here, there are drops in GST rates this year on the cards, (FM 9th March 2025). I hope this has been factored suitably in the Revenue Budget for the next year we do not want shortfalls in collections once more!
e) The proposals for the Budget year (2025-26) in just three key areas, (considering space available in my column): Education, Relearning and Research; We are well in the Macro, we meet the translated NEP target of 15% (of Budget), we do 15.8%, (Best in Class Bihar 21.4% next to Delhi 24.2%). But in School Education, we propose 8.3% less than last years’ spending. In a situation where 61 Government Schools close down last 5 years and mid-day-meals score low on nutrition, (Media report). I think, rather than heftier PWD-allocations its, School Education that’s crying!
I’m a bit disheartened that, when we consider staking claims for hosting Football and Sailing for the expected Ahmedabad Olympics 2036, our sports allocations are just 4.5% of the total Education, Culture and Sports activities! The ruling party’s manifesto promises Mission “Gold-Coast” to groom an Olympic Gold-Medallist from Goa. Not found anywhere in the Budget priorities only 10 years to go! Skilling is a pitiable 2.2% and Scientific and Environmental Research is less than 1%! And we are still to start training and deployment of our large language AI model coming supposedly in “10 months”.
Healthcare; In terms of NHP’ 2017 recommendations of 8% of Budgets, we did well at 7.3%. I only hope we implement plans well. Best in Class, Puducherry 9.5% (next to Delhi’s 13%).
Tourism: The consolidated allocations are at 440 crores which is just 1.5% of the Total Budget. I think we need to do pretty much more here. The Economic Survey states, “Hotels and Restaurants” CAGR (Constant Prices) of 5 years till last year was just a meagre 2.2%! Can such a growth-rate cope with Inflation and then grow? I hope the short-term action plans feature the recommendations of the Vision Document 2030 in terms of “World Class Infrastructure”.
One last point, I may sadly mention here that in the Foreign Tourist Arrivals Statement (Union Ministry of Tourism), Goa in 2013 hosted 0.49mln FTAs at 10th rank (Maharashtra with 4.16mln was No.1). In 2019, Goa with 0.94mln (doubled from its previous year) was still No.10. Maharashtra continued at No.1; in 2023, Goa does not figure amongst the top 10 at all, Maharashtra still No.1 with a share of 17.61% and Goa not recognisable in the “Others” who all together host just 2.09 mln (10.86%)! The State Economic Survey talks of cruise-passengers diminishing 70% and number of vessels by 40% same period. It’s good that there are mentions on needs in these areas, more as we go ahead.
I don’t know why, but I do recall Goethe and his unforgettable... “Things that matter most, must never be at the mercy of things which matter least”.
And before I part: On the Tax Holidays on Investments above Rs 5000 crores, I’m not sure whether the benefits after impacts of input-tax-credit stays as attractive to a start-up as it looks like. The Hinterland GST-sops could be a good idea though, if the roads dug up are filled up fast!
I always felt, when an entrepreneur puts money on his project, he looks more at the smoothness of the start and at ease of operations as he progresses, but that’s a different story!
(Binayak Datta is a finance professional)