AP creating records as an 'income-less' State: Yanamala Ramakrishnudu

Mangalagiri: Former Minister and TDP politburo member Yanamala Ramakrishnudu on Sunday slammed the YSRCP government for turning Andhra Pradesh into a debt-ridden State with no new sources of revenue generation to adequately carry out the welfare and development activities.

The State performed worse and came to stand in 2nd position in poverty levels as against its previous 6th position. AP was creating new records as an income-less State in the country.

In a statement here, the TDP leader said that the AP government brought Rs 2.68 lakh crore of loans in the past two-and-half years. Of this, over Rs 1.05 lakh crore was distributed among poor families as per Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy's statement. In reality, only Rs 68,632 crore was distributed under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) schemes.

The Chief Minister and his Minister should explain what they had done with the rest of Rs 1.99 lakh crore. Yanamala said that the YSRCP regime spent just 25.5 per cent of the total loans on the DBT schemes. This would come to just Rs 68,632 crore. Just Rs 31,000 crore was spent on capital expenditure in the past two-and-half years.

If this was deducted from Rs 2.68 lakh crore loans, there was over Rs. 1.68 lakh crore for which there was no record. Doubts were arising whether this massive money was pocketed by the ruling party leaders.

The TDP leader said that if the government used all these loans for revenue expenditure, then it would amount to violations of the financial agreements. The government's own budget accounts showed that just Rs 68,632 crore was spent on welfare in the past two years. Thus, AP came to stand in 19th position in welfare spending in the entire country. As such, it was proved once again that the Finance Minister's claim on Rs 1.05 lakh crore of welfare spending was a lie.

Yanamala deplored that the economic divide assumed alarming proportions and it went up from 32 per cent to 43 per cent. The number of below poverty line (BPL) families was rising steeply. The inefficient policies and decisions of the Jagan Mohan Reddy regime were responsible for this deepening crisis.