India News | Goa Govt Will Borrow Less in Next Fiscal: Sawant

Panaji, Jan 28 (PTI) Claiming that his government ensured fiscal management even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday said the state will borrow even less in the next financial year.

The government has started an exercise to tap Central schemes to decrease its dependence on borrowings, he said.

Sawant was responding to questions on fiscal responsibility raised by the opposition during a vote on Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2020-21.

Countering the opposition's claim that the government took huge loans, the chief minister said as per the data released by the Reserve Bank of India, "Goa is a state which borrows minimum."

"We borrow even less than Mizoram," Sawant added.

His government borrowed Rs 2,400 crore in the current fiscal and would borrow less in the next FY, he said.

The state government has already started revising some loans, swapping them with borrowings with lower interest rate, he said.

Some state government departments have failed to submit Utilization Certificates for the funds procured from the Centre for as much as ten years, he said.

"We have started clearing this backlog, which will be completed by March 31," Sawant told the House.

Informing that the state government is restructuring some loans, Sawant said that a loan from LIC with interest rate of 13 per cent has been repaid.

"The loan taken in the year 2008 from the Power Finance Corporation was also repaid," he said.

The state will swap the loans to NABARD which provides funding at a lower 2.5 per cent rate, he added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)