TDP president and former Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, who used to claim and still claims that the state had achieved double digit growth during his five-year regime, had miserably failed in managing the state financial position.
He had not only pushed the state into a debt trap, but also failed to spend even budgetary allocations properly in various departments. He indulged in large scale borrowings, but spent the money on unproductive things.
This was revealed in the report of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) for the financial year 2017-18, which was tabled in the state assembly on Wednesday and released to the media on Thursday.
The CAG pointed out that during 2017-18, the Naidu government had resorted to ways and means borrowings from the RBI and overdrafts for 231 out of 365 days.
In all, it had taken Rs 45,860.75 crore through ways and means and overdraft, but could not repay them on time, resulting in additional interest payment to the extent of Rs 44.31 crore.
The Naidu government miserably failed to control the fiscal deficit because of heavy borrowings between 2015-16 to 2017-18.
By March 2018, the debts of the state mounted to Rs 2,23,706 crore, but there was no corresponding assets creation to that extent. The debt servicing has gone up from 18.22 per cent in 2016-17 to 22.51 per cent in 2017-18.
The overall loan outstanding of the state to be cleared in the next seven years had gone up to Rs 91,599 crore because the state had to take fresh loans to clear old loans.
The CAG pointed out that the Naidu government had also failed to spend budgetary allocations to several departments, completely or diverted the allocations to unproductive expenditure.
For example, out of Rs 844.59 crore allocated to sports and youth affairs department, only Rs 295.55 crore was spent. In the municipal administration department, only Rs 3,719.53 crore was spent as against the allocation of Rs 5,014 crore.
For rural development, the Naidu government allocated Rs 16,787.73 crore, but had spent only Rs 13,272 crore. And under the capital expenditure, an amount of Rs 3,649 crore was allocated for Roads and Buildings department, but the government spent only Rs 914 crore.
With regard to the major irrigation department, which Naidu used to claim that he was giving top priority, the government had spent only Rs 6,874 crore out of Rs 16,051 crore.
In all, an amount of Rs 91,050 crore was allocated to 10 major departments, but the Naidu government had spent only Rs 66,874 crore; which means, an amount of Rs 24,176 crore was either not spent or diverted to non-budgetary programmes.
The CAG also pointed out misappropriation of over Rs 230 crore collected in the name of rural development cess. Out of Rs 552.41 crore cess collected from the panchayat raj bodies, only Rs 322.36 crore was spent on rural development and there was no account for the remaining amount.