Goa’s growth rate has started declining once again, sounding a warning bell to the financial managers in the government. The major sectors affecting the economic growth are mining, agriculture and fishing. All the three sectors have shown negative growth in the Economic Survey released by the Laxmikant Parsekar government today. The fiscal deficit has also increased by Rs 604 crore in one year. The figures released in the Economic Survey are a matter of concern as far as primary sector is concerned. It is not a growth, but a decline of -16%. There is little growth in the secondary sector of manufacturing, 5.60% to 6.73%, which is hardly 1.13% more. Even the tertiary sector of service industry is showing little growth, not even 1%. Further break-up of the Primary sector of the last three years is equally frightening. The agriculture sector had shown a positive growth of plus 4.51% in 2013-14 from the decline of -3.84% the previous year. But now again it has declined to -6.38%. Similar is the fate of fishing industry. From the decline of -11.05%, it was showing positive growth of almost 39%. But once again, it is being pushed into negative growth, which is -0.5%. It means actual decline of 39.2% Mining is yet another shocker. The growth in 2012-13 was obviously -69% because there was a ban on mining activity. But it had improved substantially in 2013-14 with a positive growth of 0.17%. Now, once again, it is being pushed into negative growth of -56%. The figure of 2015-16 is yet to come. The only positive growth is in the forestry. It is growing gradually, from 9 to 10 to 14%. The Economic Survey also states that the overall fiscal deficit of the state of Goa has increased than the last year. It was Rs 948 crore in 2014-15. But that has now increased to Rs 1553 crore. It means the fiscal deficit has increased by Rs 604 crore.
2010. A Sandesh Prabhudessai Initiative