TEAM HERALD

teamherald@herald-goa.com

PANJIM: State’s finances went from the revenue surplus to deficit during Chief Minister Digambar Kamat government’s reign, an NGO claimed Wednesday pointing out to budget statistics.

Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO, which has analyzed the budget statistics and affidavits filed by MLAs for 2007 Goa polls, has said that state faced revenue deficit in 2009-10 due to avoidable expenditure.

The figure collected from the state budget indicates that finances plunged from revenue surplus to revenue deficit in the fiscal 2009-10 when revenue expenditure exceeded revenue receipts.

ADR has said that for FY 2009-10, the revenue receipt increased by almost 16 per cent. But the expenditure grew at a faster pace that is 23.5 per cent (Rs 802 crores).

“The finances indicates that it was bad performance by Digambar Kamat led government,” ADR’s state coordinator Bhaskar Assoldekar told reporters.

“Most of the expenditure was on education, sports, art and culture (Rs 160 crore), pension and retirement benefits (Rs 129 crore), power (Rs 76 crore) and health and family welfare (Rs 53 crore),” he said.

Assoldekar said that salary and pension liability had increased during 2009-10 due to implementation of sixth pay commission for government servants.

As per statistics, during 2008-09 and 2009-10, the expenditure on salaries alone increased from Rs 224 crore to Rs 268 crores.

“Goa has a government servant-public ratio of 1:26. There is no employment audit for the government servants to check how many of them are surplus,” said Manguirish Pai Raikar, ADR member and Chairman of Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI).

NGO in its financial analysis which were presented before media Wednesday has said that fiscal deficit during 2009-10 was 5.49 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP). In 2008-09 and 2009-10, Government of Goa has not received any debt waiver since the necessary conditions were not met.