Goa CM Pramod Sawant to present his 7th budget today

Panaji: Chief minister Pramod Sawant will present the financial statement for 2026-2027 on Friday, the first day of the budget session of the Goa legislative assembly. Govt will face the opposition demand to repeal Sections 39(A) and 17(2) of the TCP Act, related to land conversion, as was widely seen during the recent protests in the state.The opposition submitted a joint private member’s bill to repeal both the Sections of the TCP Act.During the session, state govt will answer over 2,500 questions.Out of the 2,576 questions, state govt will answer 538 starred questions and 2,038 unstarred questions related to various departments. Besides, govt will take up around 12 bills, including the appropriation bill, and 21 private member bills during the session.This will be the last full-fledged budget presented by Sawant ahead of the general assembly elections in 2027. Sawant, who also holds the finance portfolio, will present the budget for the seventh consecutive time since 2020.Leader of the opposition Yuri Alemao said that the opposition has planned a strategy and put joint questions to expose govt on corruption and environmental damage, including rivers and slopes. “Casinos have been damaging Mandovi, and hills were cut and damaged the environment,” he said.Alemao said that there is no limit on govt borrowing, and the implication of borrowing is being faced by the common man, who is already in trouble due to inflation. He said that nobody is happy in Goa and this is an event management govt that spends crores of rupees on events and advertisements to boost its image.Alemao said that the opposition raised the issues in the assembly, but today the situation has gone from bad to worse. “We hope that the Speaker allows us to raise public issues by allocating more time to speak. The public are agitating on roads, and we have to raise those issues in the assembly. Chief minister has 51 portfolios, and we were allotted only 1 hour. Even if we speak 1 minute on 1 portfolio, then 1 hour will not be enough. We requested the Speaker to allot more time to the opposition,” he said.Alemao said that the opposition will raise the issues of forceful implementation of NEP in the state.During the 14-day budget session, the CM will table the “action taken” report on the previous budget.The session, which starts on March 6, will continue till March 27 with 14 days of sittings. The House will not meet on March 19 due to Gudi Padwa and on March 26 on account of Ram Navami.