Giving top priority to welfare schemes despite Covid crisis: Buggana Rajendranath Reddy

Amaravati: Despite fall in revenue due to Covid-19, the government has not gone back in implementing the welfare schemes, said Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy.

In a statement on Saturday, the Finance Minister said during the previous TDP regime, Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) between2014-19 was 10.03 per cent, whereas with the Covid effect, between 2019-21, only 1.30 per cent has been registered, which resulted in a loss of Rs 7947.07 crore.

During the first lockdown between April-May 2020, nearly Rs 4709.24 crore revenue loss occurred and also expected revenue has gone down during 2021-22.

For fighting against the Covid, the State government had spent Rs 7130.19 crore to extend treatment to patients, developing medical infra, testing, vaccination and many more irrespective of the Centre support.

Taking a dig at TDP, he said that the previous government had crippled the State's finances with abnormal borrowings and left a huge pile of debts. At the time of bifurcation, the total debt was only Rs 1,18,544.34 crore, but between 2014-19 it had gone up to Rs 2,57,509.85 crore. Besides these, through various corporations, the TDP government had left a debt of Rs 1,00,000 crore.

However, the current government is being accountable for every single borrowing, as on date Rs 1,27,195.81 crore has been borrowed. Various welfare schemes are being implemented and financial assistance has also been provided to farmers and self-help groups despite the Covid crisis.

He said that all the borrowings have been done as per the FRBM limits, where the Union government has permitted additional borrowings of Rs 20,000 crore under Atma Nirbhar Bharat mission.

He said giving priority to the education sector, the government had spent Rs 25,914.13 crore by implementing various schemes to benefit students.

The State government had also accorded priority to the health sector by revamping YSR Aarogya Sri and increased the number of treatments to 2,346 by spending Rs 4,342.05 crore for treating 12.48 lakh patients.

The Minister said that the previous government had only spent Rs 26,403.57 crore in a span of five years on pensions while the current government had incurred an expenditure of Rs 37,461.89 crore in just 27 months.

In addition to these, the government also stood by the weaver community by extending a support of Rs 575.87 crore in the last two years, while it was only Rs 259.04 crore between 2014-19 during the TDP rule.