Telangana’s financial position is bleak
as the total debt mounted close to 10 times in the last 10 years during the erstwhile
Bharat Rashtra Samithi Government led by former Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar
Rao, as per the white paper tabled by the newly-formed Congress Government’s Finance
Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka in the Assembly on Wednesday.
Vikramarka informed that the total debt
of the State Government, including the loans raised through launch of special
purpose vehicles, had gone up from ₹72,658 crore in 2014-15 to ₹671,757 crore.
“This gigantic increase in the debt has
created an enormous fiscal stress on the State’s finances in terms of its
ability to service the debt. No tangible fiscal assets in proportion to the
money spent were created in the past 10 years,” he shared.
However refuting the claims, senior BRS
legislator and former State Finance Minister T Harish Rao said, “It is a
blatant lie that the previous government had not created any tangible assets in
tune with the borrowings, only to project that it had not done anything.”
Accusing the Grand Old Party, Rao added,
“It appears the Congress Government is trying to escape from its responsibility
of implementing its six guarantees by showing a grim picture of State finances.”
He said there was a gap of almost 20 per
cent between the budgeted and the actual expenditure in the last nine years.
The budget estimates rose from ₹100,638 crore in 2014-15 to ₹256,859 crore in
2022-23.
“But the actual expenditure was ₹62,306
crore in 2014-15 and it went up to ₹204,085 crore in 2022-23. In the period
between 2014 and 2023, on average, Telangana actually spent only 82.3 per cent
of the budgeted expenditure,” he said.
Vikramarka said since formation of
Telangana, the government had entered into 39,175 work agreements of 24
departments amounting to ₹349,843 crore, for which ₹1,89,903 crore expenditure
was already incurred by December 4, 2023 and a balance amount of ₹159,940 crore
is yet to be spent.
“The State Government has to make
budgetary provision of ₹86,957 crore in the coming financial years for the
balance works. Further, an amount of ₹72,983 crore will have to be borrowed
from the various financial institutions. Overall, this will add to the debt
servicing burden of the State,” he said.
He pointed out that the State Government,
as of December 19, will have to clear 478,168 bills amounting to ₹40,154 crore
payable to the employees/ contractors/ suppliers and others.
“A careful analysis of the above facts
shows that Telangana which was a revenue surplus State in 2014 and has one of
the fastest growing economies in the country is now staring at a debt crisis.
The rate of accumulation of the debt from off-budget borrowings has led to this
situation,” he said.
Counter White Paper By BRS
The BRS legislature party sought the
permission of Speaker G Prasad Kumar to make its own power-point presentation
in the Assembly to put the records straight but the Speaker said there was no
such provision.
Subsequently, BRS leaders released the
copy of the presentation to the media, stating that the previous K
Chandrasekhar Rao Government had created huge assets in the last 10 years.
The presentation elucidated the
development and assets of the KCR Government, right from the power sector, to
infrastructure, economy, agriculture and so on.
The reforms in the power sector, which
enabled the State to reach the top in per capita power consumption, and the
multiple initiatives in other sectors which saw it reaching the top in the
country again in per capita income as well, have been detailed in the document.
The presentation, which compares the
situation in 2014 and 2023, also details the growth in GSDP, sales tax,
registration income, the development in infrastructure including the new roads
laid and the decentralisation of the State’s districts from 10 to 33.
It pointed out how the BRS Government
took up construction of the integrated district offices complexes in 30
districts so far at a cost of ₹1,649.62 crore and increased the number of
municipalities from 52 to 128 and so on, to mention a few.
The BRS said after the formation of
Telangana, the assets of the State had increased by 159 per cent.
“For every ₹1 loan borrowed by the BRS Government,
there was creation of assets worth ₹1,000,” stated the white paper.
Similarly, the per capita income of the
Telangana shot up by 151 per cent, tax collections by 161 per cent and revenue
from stamps and registrations by 406 per cent. The production of crops
increased multi-fold – paddy by 150 per cent and cotton by 50 per cent.
“The area under cultivation went up by
50 per cent compared to 2014,” the BRS white paper said.
NE Watch Desk
