PANAJI: Accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Goa of not implementing various proposals mentioned in the Budget 2019-2020, the opposition Congress party on Wednesday demanded an "Action-Taken Report (ATR)" from Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who also holds Finance portfolio, will table the budget 2020-2021 in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday, February 6.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Girish Chodankar on Wednesday said that the BJP-led government had not fulfilled many promises like resumption of mining, revamping school curriculum and setting up anganwadis it had made in the last year's budget.
Chodankar demanded that the Chief Minister should table the action taken report (ATR) on the last year's financial statement in the Legislative Assembly before tabling the budget for the next fiscal.
"Although BJP leaders since 2012 had been promising to resume mining operations, CM Sawant had categorically stated during his budget presentation that the government will exploit legislative and judicial options to restart mining. The CM needs to inform which options were explored and whether mining will be resumed in Goa?" questioned Chodankar.
Referring to the Goa government's proposal to start 100 model anganwadis (rural child healthcare centres), Chodankar demanded the current status of that promise. He also questioned the status of the Chief Minister's promise to revamp the entire school curriculum by the Goa University and the Goa Education Development Corporation (GEDC) and bring it on par with other States.
Chodankar said, per capita loan has increased from Rs 80,000 in 2012 to Rs 1.50 lakh in 2019 and public debt will soon cross 25 per cent of State GDP.
Chodankar has predicted that the State government would continue to raise public debt to support populist scheme and wasteful expenditure in anticipation of approaching Assembly elections and lead the State to economic bankruptcy before people realise their mistakes in 2022.