Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday told the Goa legislative assembly that revenue earned from the casino industry had doubled over the last two years.
In a written reply to a question asked by leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar, Mr. Parrikar who also holds Finance portfolio said that there was no co-relation between the casino industry and the coastal state’s crime rate. The question by the Congress MLA was whether crime rate had increased in Goa due to casino operations. Mr. Parrikar said "No" in his written reply.
Mr. Parrikar further claimed that crime rate had decreased in the last three years, with 4467 criminal cases reported in 2014, 3074 in 2015, 2693 in 2016, respectively.
The Chief Minister also said that revenues generated by the state exchequer over the last three fiscals from casions had increased substantially. While the State earned ₹78.62 crore in 2014-16 from the casino industry in form of various taxes, in the year 2016-17, it went up to ₹161.96 crore
Goa has five casinos operating in river Mandovi and around 10 onshore casinos restricted to hotels in five star and above category.
