Government condemns Opposition 'misinformation' on debts
The YSRCP government blames pandemic-induced lockdown as one of the reasons for continueing financial woes of AP
Amaravati: The state government on Wednesday released 'some facts' regarding the state's finances and borrowings as a "misinformation campaign has been launched to mislead the RBI, the Centre, banks and financial institutions, Parliament and public".
A political attempt was on to cripple the state financially, the press release said holding the "principal Opposition party and the media sympathetic towards it" responsible for it.
It reiterated that the financial problems were not attributable to the present government in any case as since 2014, the state had been in for economic deprivation. The per capita to begin with was low at Rs 8,979 compared to Telangana's Rs 15,454 in 2015-16, it stated.
As for the state itself, the debt inherited was Rs 97,123 crore and when public account share is also added the same shot up to Rs 1,20,556 crore and in five years it increased to Rs 2,68,225 crore. The outstanding payables as on March 31, 2019 were to the tune of Rs 39,000 crore and the off-Budget borrowings were Rs 58,000 crore. The power sector was also crippled with a Rs 70,254 crore debt burden by the period. Dues by the discoms ran up to Rs 21,540.96 crore in addition.
An All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey of 2016-17 indicated that the indebtedness amongst agricultural households in the state was as high as 77 per cent compared to the national average of 47 per cent. Over and above these, the state always overshot the borrowing limits then and whatever the Centre was planning to reduce as the borrowing space to the tune of Rs 17,983 crore, the backlog of up to Rs 16,418 crore out of it was thanks due to the then government.
Post 2019, the state's share in Central taxes also was reduced to Rs 28,242 crore from Rs 34,833 crore. The Covid related expenditure was to the tune of Rs 8,000 crore, the statement said.
In addition, the government had to resort to direct benefit transfers to several sections to ease their distress too, the release said adding that despite all these troubles the government was doing a good job.