Panaji: Chief minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday said that only 10% of his budget promises are remaining to be completed and another 5% would be fulfilled in the next assembly session as various bills will be introduced. He added that 90% of his budgetary promises have either commenced or completed for the financial year 2023-2024. Chief minister told TOI that he will place an action taken report on the budget in the assembly to inform the public about the performance of his government.“I can say that only 10% budgetary promises are left to be started. Of these 5% are related to ease of doing business and some amendments to the existing law will be done in the budget session,” Sawant said, adding that most of the promised projects will take a year or two for completion. Last week, the cabinet granted its approval to summon the budget session from February 2. Sawant said that the assembly’s business advisory committee will decide the number of days for the session.Opening his second innings with the first budget of the newly-elected BJP government, Sawant presented a Rs 24,467.4 crore budget for 2022-23 with a strong focus on job creation and on making Goa self-reliant. The chief minister chose to leave taxes unchanged and promised to increase the state’s dwindling income through reforms. The Economic Survey makes the state government’s economic predictions clear, with deposits in banks outpacing the state’s gross state domestic product. Goa’s GSDP is estimated at Rs 91,416 crore in the coming financial year indicating a 7% growth, but total bank deposits have already outpaced the economy to stand at Rs 93,618 crore.Among the many reforms that Sawant promised to introduce is the implementation of e-governance measures such as e-office and e-HRMS, which will enable the government to go paperless and maintain a centralised database of employees.To promote entrepreneurship and job creation in the state, the budget promised to create women entrepreneurship development programmes at district and state level. He also said that the government would launch a dedicated entrepreneurship policy, while a study will also be conducted to identify the mismatch between demand and supply of trained workforce.
