We chanced upon a shocker of a story while going through some records and notes. Each of us living in Goa is under a debt trap of Rs 1 lakh each and this is only growing bigger. This is fundamentally due to the mammoth Rs 15,000 crore of borrowings which include almost Rs 5000 crore by this BJP
government alone.
The government is not only paying for social security schemes, it is also learnt that salaries of several departments are eked out through the borrowing. Now Rs 15,000 crore is not a small amount and actually puts into perspective the picture of our economy. It is only when this figure stares at you in the face, that you can put into context some of the expenditures the government has been incurring, which could have been put off completely or deferred, till the debt burden was reduced and revenues increased.
Did the government have to go NABARD, an agriculture finance bank and seek a loan for the Tiracol Bridge, constructed only to help the Leading Hotels? Was there a need for the third Mandovi bridge by borrowing heavily again from NABARD? If you look at the pattern of borrowing only from this agency, you will see how this organization, which mainly caters to the agricultural sector, has been used for fund supply. In the last five years the loans received form NABARD annually read as 36.17 cr, 108.70 crores, 106.59 crores, 149.14 crores and finally Rs 52.93 crores in the yet unfinished current financial year. This is clearly an unnatural borrowing from an unlikely source.
While this debt has been incurred, an alternative economic model, where enough and more will be left for each individual, can be achieved. The Goenchi Mati Pernament Fund where the proceeds of the sale of minerals will be kept in perpetuity will make each one of you richer. It is true that if this works the way it should, each Goa resident will get a monthly amount into his or her account which will take care of at least some of their important expenses?
We will quote from our front page report of August 15 ,2015, on the Goenchi Mati Permanent fund to simply reiterate what we have said
“Rs 54,000 crore was the balance left after deducting extraction expenses from the total sale of iron ore. While Rs 19,000 crore of this amount went to the centre in taxes and Rs 33,000 crore went to mining companies, leaving just about Rs 2000 crore which came as royalty, this entire amount of Rs 54,000 crore could have been ours if the principle of mining was changed or changed to make we the people the owner of our resources.
If this amount was put into a permanent “Goenchi Mati Permanent Fund” or “GMPF” and even if an interest of 3% accrued from this annually, we would have been left with Rs 1500 crore, without any mining company paying any royalty. If this amount was distributed among 15 lakh permanent residents of Goa, each person would get Rs 10,000 a year or each family (with 5 members) would get Rs 50,000 a year. This is, if no further mining takes place in Goa. In the event of even 10 percent of mining taking place with 5 million tonnes of export instead of 50 million tonnes, the final amount each year to each one of us would also increase.
It is high time that the government adopts these modules and have enough or more left over for each Goan resident rather than make him or her live in debt from birth to death just because the government cannot be responsible.
