Porvorim: Indicating deft financial management, the state govt has succeeded in not taking fresh loans from open market borrowings this financial year, said chief minister Pramod Sawant on Monday. Sawant said that while avoiding fresh fiscal liabilities, govt managed to repay Rs 1,103 crore of principal and interest towards outstanding loans.Sawant made the disclosure in response to a calling attention motion moved by Curtorim independent MLA Aleixo Lourenco.However, the opposition challenged Sawant’s claims that govt has curtailed its debt and kept spending in check.“Despite the govt projecting a revenue surplus, there is fiscal pressure. This surplus is only on paper,” said GFP MLA Vijai Sardesai. “The fiscal deficit is Rs 4,422 crore or 3.4% of the GSDP is up from the revised estimates of 3.1% of 2025-26. This is above the 3% recommended by the 16th Finance Commission.”Sawant said that the govt has maintained a revenue surplus for five consecutive years. In 2025-26, actual revenue surplus stood at Rs 2,554 crore, against a budget estimate of Rs 2,418 crore. The data tabled by Sawant in the house said that Goa’s fiscal deficit for 2025-26 was Rs 2,325 crore, translating to 1.6 per cent of GSDP, comfortably within the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act’s 3% benchmark.The state’s debt-to-GSDP ratio has been on a downward trajectory, easing from 30.5% in 2022-23 to 29.3% in 2023-24 and further to 27.9% in 2024-25 against a target ceiling of 25%.“Though we have an outstanding debt, in the next two years we will be able to bring it under control. We will be able to bring the debt to GSDP ratio below 25% in two years, I am confident of this,” said Sawant.Opposition leader Yuri Alemao claimed that govt was manipulating the borrowing numbers by resorting to off-budget borrowing. Sawant denied the claim.“We had done off-budgeting when Atal Setu was being built with Rs 500 crore being borrowed from Nabard. We have not done any off-budget borrowing since then,” said Sawant.Sawant said the state govt leveraged Rs 2,078 crore in special assistance from Centre to fund capital works in 2025-26, the highest such assistance in the state’s history.
