Sajjala sees bid to create confusion on state finances

Vijayawada: Government advisor (public affairs) Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy said that TDP national president N Chandrababu Naidu and some sections of media supporting him were carrying out a 'false campaign' on the financial condition of the state government, while Chief Minister Y S Jaganmohan Reddy was successfully implementing welfare schemes and developmental programmes becoming a role model for other states.

Speaking to media persons at the Secretariat on Thursday, Ramakrishna Reddy said that when a TDP MP raised a question in Parliament, the Union minister answered that the AP government during TDP rule had failed to show accounts for more than Rs 1.10 lakh crore. But the TDP is resorting to false campaign and was trying to confuse people on the financial condition of the state, he said.

Speaking about the financial condition of the state, special secretary to CM (finance and economic affairs) Duvvuri Krishna said that with the respect of Andhra Pradesh the debt situation in 2022 is quite encouraging. The provisional figures released by Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) convey that for the financial year 2021-22 the AP government had managed the state finances in the most fiscally-prudent fashion with the revenue deficit being limited to Rs 8,370.51 crore and fiscal deficit to Rs 25,194.62 crore.

This means fiscal deficit to GSDP ratio of less than Rs 2.10 per cent while the same was 3.95 per cent during 2014-15, 4.6 per cent during 2018-19 under TDP rule. Though the GSDP deficit stands at 5.44 per cent due to Covid crisis during 2020-21, the state government was able to bring down the GSDP deficit to 2.10 per cent by 2021-22.

Duvvuri Krishna said that despite admirable performance of state government, attempts were being made to trigger concern on state's finances among financial institutions like RBI, Central government and public. He said it may be noted that the rate at which debt increased during TDP period was much faster when compared with pace of debt increase during the present government. He said the fiscal deficit to GSDP ratio in AP is among the lowest in the country.