The YSR Congress party government in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday blamed it on the previous rule of the Telugu Desam Party for the mounting debts of the state at present.
The government issued a lengthy clarification as to why the state had to go in for heavy borrowings in the last one year.
The statement said both the state and the Central governments had an overreliance on debts due to steep fall in revenues and heavy expenditure.
“The Central Government was forced to make a borrowing of Rs 18,48,655 crores this year, which is the highest the country has ever witnessed. The state, too, had to borrow heavily due to pandemic,” it said.
The statement said during 2014-19, the borrowings reached alarming levels. The then TDP government had hurriedly introduced schemes and disbursed monies by spending Rs 6,000 crore during the first 10 days of April 2019 just before elections.
While the central government’s debt during 2014-19 period increased by 49.92%, the state debt increased by 132.31%.
In addition to the above, owing to TDP’s misgovernance during 2014-19 the State had to endure the burden of many more additional liabilities such as outstanding payables of Rs 39,000 crore as on March 31, 2019, off-budget borrowings to the tune of Rs 58,000 crore.
Further, the debt in the books of the power sector corporations has increased from Rs. 33,587 crores to Rs. 70,254 crores over the five-year period, dues of Discoms to the power generators increased from Rs 2,893 crores to Rs. 21,540 crores.
“Owing to this alarming increase in liabilities of the state during 2014-19, the servicing cost of the debt has risen to more than Rs 25,000 crores,” the state government said.
It further said the present government had implemented several welfare schemes in spite of financial crisis.
“It is indeed a fact that the state had to borrow heavily owing to these reasons. The growth in debt of the state does not substantially exceed that of the Central government debt,” it defended.