BY DR J C ALMEIDA
Due to the era of coalition governments, the political discipline gets affected. While deposing the business of the government a misplaced assumption has to be avoided that a Cabinet decision can overrule rules and regulation in force.

The styles of working of the ministers of a state government have created tremendous pulls and pressures on the government servants, especially when the approved rules and regulations cannot be bypassed. Similar styles of working have now affected the panchayats and the zilla panchayats. Due to the adoption of single file system in the administration, it is not possible to reconstruct the claimed missing files. This has created a feeling that there is corruption at all levels of the state government. The state administration has been led to adjust to the new styles of administration. If there was sober publicity and control over the laxity in the administration, the construction activity, promoted by tourism sector that has grown beyond limits after Statehood, could have maintained the original flavor of the state. The other related service sectors have also grown substantially.
Without assessing the real needs of a small state like Goa, the size of administration has been expanded by increasing the number of secretaries, creating new departments and corporations and increasing the number of government servants, only to satisfy the whims and fancies of the ministers. Yet, the delivery of services to the public is yet to be improved. Apart from financial burden, a dispersed administration delays decision making and affects the smooth delivery of services to the public. If there was absence of political patronage, the idleness, indiscipline and lack of accountability in most of the government departments could have been avoided. It appears that the past disciplined, rule bound committed government administration, has given way to selfish, disinterested, partial and politically affiliated administration.
In 1997, the Legislative Assembly was informed that there were 37,000 government servants and that their monthly salary bill was about Rs 16.56 crore. The 2007 census of government employees indicated that the number of government servants in the state have reached 47,718. In spite of economy measures approved under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act 2006, additional appointments continue to be made. With the efforts made by the government to computerise the public services, the increase in the number of government servants could be avoided. The yearly salary bill, including pension benefits, had reached to Rs 1033 crore in the year 2008-09, representing about 30 per cent of the State’s Revenue Expenditure. In the status of a state, its government has to raise its own taxes to cover any deficit in the revenue account. In addition to raising its own revenues by levying additional taxes and claiming for a share in the central financial resources, it can also take recourse to market borrowing to meet its financial needs. Such powers of the government are to be exercised judiciously, so as to ensure proper balance between the needs of development of the state and repaying capacity of its liabilities. As a result of natural growth in the continuing/additional taxes the revenue receipts of the state have reached to Rs 3528 crore, in the year 2008-09. They have increase by Rs 3367 crore, during the period 1987-2009.The public debt of the state is increasing year after year and it has reached a figure of Rs 5103 crore, in the year 2008-09, on which the state has paid interest amounting to Rs 510 crore, which represents about 15 per cent of the total revenue expenditure. Since, every year, the government spends around 45 per cent of its revenue receipts only for the payment of interest on the loans taken and maintaining heavy public administration, not much is left for development purposes. Every year the state has been borrowing for repaying the loan instalments that are falling due of the previous loans. Due to this, the fiscal deficit of the state is increasing every year and has reached Rs 916 crore in the year 2008-09. This is the financial impact of Statehood on the administration of Goa. The per capita taxation of people from Goa is much higher than any other state of India. Since the state is saturated of heavy taxation, unless the government expenditure and market borrowing are reduced, the fiscal deficit will go on increasing.
This is the extent of financial and administrative liability that the successive governments in power will be transferring to our future generations. The real impact of Statehood on the administration is that the government is in a position to decide the ideal structure of administration for the small state like Goa, to make it administratively, economically and financially viable, capable of providing the basic inputs to the public. Let us hope that the government will avail of this opportunity.
Courtesy Nave Parva (The writer is a retired IAS officer) Readers are invited to send their views on current topics exclusively to The Navhind Times for the My Take column to mytake@navhindtimes.com or post it to The Navhind Times office. In both cases ‘My Take’ should be in the subject line of the email or superscribed on the envelope as the case may be. The views should be in about 500 words. A one-line introduction of the writer is a must.