Goa budget: Incentives to boost investment and job creation

Porvorim: Chief minister Pramod Sawant’s move to offer tax breaks sent a clear message — Goa is open for business. The budget for 2025-26 hopes the tax holiday will trigger an investment wave akin to the 1990s, leading to the establishment of new industries and ramping up job creation in a state struggling with high unemployment.
Sawant said that industries or organisations ready to invest more than Rs 5,000 crore will benefit from various incentives, including full SGST reimbursement for five years, a 50% waiver on stamp duty and registration charges, along with a subsidy on the supply of various amenities for a period of five years.
He also announced that to boost the logistics sector in Goa, eight new schemes under the Logistics and Warehousing Policy, 2023, will be implemented. These schemes will provide subsidies on fixed capital investment, interest payable on loans, upgrading of traffic-tracking equipment, upgrading of logistics management software, quality improvement, skill development, reduction of stamp duty and registration fees, and electricity for cold chain units. An allocation of Rs 4.7 crore has been made for this purpose.
The chief minister said an interest rebate on working capital will be provided to industries that process Goan cashews. He also said that after reducing VAT on natural gas from 12.5% to 4% to ensure that industries use cleaner fuels, all new registrations for boilers will compulsorily require them to operate on non-polluting fuels.
“For the existing registered boilers operating on non-clean energy, a phase-wise conversion to natural gas fuels would be notified by disincentivising the use of polluting fuels,” said Sawant. A dedicated corridor to the electronics manufacturing cluster will also be constructed to boost connectivity.
Sawant’s budget proposals signal a strategic shift towards bringing in fresh investment in the manufacturing sector, which contributed around 52% of the state’s economy in 2022-23, with key areas including pharmaceuticals, electronics, and cashew processing. He also said govt will launch a dedicated job portal, which will enable all companies in Goa to post their job vacancies on this portal and also allow Goan candidates to receive exclusive access to all the openings for the first seven days, ensuring local talent gets the first opportunity.