Panaji, Nov 9 (TNN): The ban reduced our revenue directly by 25% and around 15% indirectly. Still, I was running the state for the last 30 months without allowing the common man to feel the pinch," a visibly emotional Parrikar said in a choked voice as he prepared to leave the state.

Before the ban, Goa was used to earning revenues of Rs 1,400 crore a month from mining. The regular monthly expenditure of salaries, pension, social schemes, power purchase and loan payments works out to Rs 400 crore. Parrikar has managed to break even by personally monitoring revenue earnings on a day-to-day basis and getting roughly Rs 410 crore through commercial taxes, excise, non-tax revenues and share of central taxes.

"It has been a hand-to-mouth position from the time mining activity was banned," admits a senior official in the finance ministry. He wonders whether Parrikar's successor would be able to monitor the financials as efficiently.

Parrikar at the Centre also means that there's an unfinished agenda back in Goa. For instance, in its 2012 manifesto, the BJP had promised to scrap the 'Regional Plan' and draw up a new one with "people's participation in a transparent manner". However, not much has happened on that front, and the plan, according to NGOs and village gram sabhas, will encourage illegal buildings and ecological destruction. Parrikar had also promised to arrest mining scamsters, but that too remains a task incomplete.

While his failures in fulfilling the election promises are glaring, Parrikar deserves credit for shielding Goa from a full-blown financial crisis in the wake of the mining ban. The state for which he worked 18 hours a day for the past two decades as leader of the Opposition and also as chief minister will miss him. He will miss Goa, too.

"I will miss my state, my family and the fish," the 59-year-old widower said at a tearful Cabinet briefing on Friday. "I didn't want to go, but the nation comes first." Many back in Goa may be wishing it didn't have to be that way.