Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: The Pramod Sawant government, which recently imposed strict austerity measures in an effort to reduce government spending and limit the revenue deficit in the final quarter of the current fiscal year, received a boost on Friday when the Center’s Finance Ministry released a tranche of Goa’s tax share of Rs 667.91 crore.
In addition to Goa, the Centre concurrently disbursed Rs 1.73 lakh crore in funding to other State governments as part of the devolution of tax income to States.
A significantly smaller portion of tax revenues—Rs 89,086 crore—were transferred to the States by the Union government in December.
Sawant responded to the Center’s financial infusion by stating that his government will be able to concentrate on capital expenditures for infrastructure projects and the distribution of essential social sector programs throughout the State.
Goa and Sikkim got the smallest amount of Rs 667.91 crore and Rs 671.35 crore respectively.
The share of states in the central taxes for the 2021 to 2026 period is recommended to be 41 per cent, same as that for 2020-21. This is less than the 42 per cent share recommended by the 14th Finance Commission for 2015-20 period. The adjustment of 1 per cent was made to provide for the newly formed union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh from the resources of the centre.
For devolution amount to individual states, 12.5 per cent weightage is given to the demographic performance, 45 per cent to income, 15 per cent each to population and area, 10 per cent to forest and ecology and 2.5 per cent to tax and fiscal efforts.
