The State Budget 2018-2019 was always Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s to present. He drafted it, even fine tuned it from his hospital room in Mumbai, and when all expected that it would be tabled by another senior minister, Parrikar arrived in Goa on a private plane to present on the Floor of the Assembly. His surprise arrival overshadowed the Budget. On a day that is otherwise totally focused on the State’s finances and people’s purses, the CM’s health and return dominated conversations, discussions and debates.
There may be many who would argue that there was not much to debate. It was, after all, an interim Budget with the promise of all schemes and programmes being adopted and implemented in the new financial year, and a vote on account for five months that will see the government through. The vote on account was passed by the Assembly smoothly – the entire exercise from the reading of the Budget speech to its passing – taking just about a quarter on an hour.
This State Budget is more of an administrative necessity, to ensure that there are no impediments to the administration’s functioning in the new financial year, so the passing of the Budget was a necessity.
The Budget speech did not, however, have any announcements for the people. For a major segment of the people, the Budget is not a financial statement of the government, but the speech through which they learn for what items they will have to pay more and for what they will have to pay less. The papers tabled had the finer points and as earlier admitted by the Chief Minister that this was not going to be a populist budget there were no major schemes, and no new taxes either.
The Budget speech has also been the means by which the government has announced its plans for the year, especially the social welfare schemes that in the past few years have dominated the contents of the speech. This is the second Budget since this government has taken over, and the Chief Minister had earlier said, it would not be a populist one, and in his brief address to the Legislative Assembly he did make it a point to mention that social welfare and health, areas that are ‘dear’ to his heart will not be neglected.
The highlight of this brief budget speech was the Chief Minister announcing that this would be the year of employment and that education would be brought in tune with the industry employment potential. That is an area that the government truly has to focus on – making the youth ready for employment in the State itself. In recent years the number of youth leaving the State in search of gainful employment elsewhere has risen, and making it worth their while to stay back in the home State, with an economically rewarding job has to top the government’s priority list.
There was, however, no mention of mining in the Chief Minister’s brief budget statement. The mining dependents who protested on Wednesday, and returned home saying they felt humiliated because the promised resolution on mining was not taken up and passed by the Assembly, and for the industry that is facing a shut down just weeks from today, there was little consolation.
As one looks back at the brief budget speech, one wonders whether there was just a little hint of the possibility of elections, when the Chief Minister said that this would be the year of employment. Remember 2016, the last Budget presented by then Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar? He had said the Budget would be for the people and job-oriented. And he had peppered his Budget with as many sops, schemes and payouts as was possible. It was election year then.
