From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network – Panaji

Panaji, Mar 17: Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar today said that 70-75 percent of the plan funds from the last budget was spent by the state government, which is lower than what he expected.

“The review of the last budget indicates that 70-72 percent of the plan funds were spent by the government during last year. I would have loved it to be 80-85 percent,” Parrikar told reporters in Panaji.

He said that ideally the best situation is that 90 percent of the planned funds are spent by the government, but usually that does not happen.

The chief minister would be presenting the forthcoming budget on March 18, when the month long assembly session begins here.
Parrikar said that there were some unforeseen circumstances that created problems in the spending of the government. “I am not denying that there is a problem. But these problems were unforeseen,” he justified, referring to the halt in the mining activity which left the State government with revenue loss of Rs 650 cr.

The chief minister said that the things have fallen in place now and government has already began preparing for the spending from the forthcoming budget.

Parrikar said that he had no time to spend while preparing last budget as he had taken over the reign of the State, few days before presenting the budget.

This time, we had enough time to plan, he said, adding that he sleeps only for three hours regularly these days as he is busy with drafting the budget.