A day after Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy stated that the debt growth of the state is less compared to the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) regime, TDP leader and former Finance Minister Y. Ramakrishnudu on Sunday dared him for a debate.
Ramakrishnudu said the Chief Minister should come forward for an open debate on the heavy debt burden on the State.
He said the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues have been changing tack quite frequently on the future of Andhra Pradesh with regard to the liabilities of the state. “I am ready for an open debate with the Chief Minister in the presence of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) officials on the borrowing of the state,” Ramakrishnudu said.
Expressing anguish at the “distortion of the facts”, though as an experienced economist, he has been narrating certain facts on the state’s economic condition, the TDP leader said that even constitutional authorities like the CAG are being misled by the state government.
“Is it not a fact that the CAG has openly stated that the details are not being submitted to it,” he asked.
“The Chief Minister is resorting to false propaganda that the State is making less borrowings than earlier,” he said and made it clear that Jagan Mohan Reddy will go down in history as the Chief Minister who made the maximum borrowings. He is more focussing on raising debts and misusing these funds than welfare of the state, Ramakrishnudu alleged.
The total debt burden on the state from 1956 till 2019 was Rs 2.53 lakh crore while Jagan Mohan Reddy, in these three and a half years inflated the level of burden to Rs 6.38 lakh crore, the former Finance Minister said. This apart, the dues to be paid to the employees as salaries and the bills to be cleared for the contractors amount to thousands of crores of rupees, he said.
“This clearly indicates that by the time Mr Jagan’s five-year term ends the total debts may cross even Rs 11 lakh crore,” he added.
Observing that the total debts during the TDP regime was Rs 1,63,981 crore of which major share was allotted to capital expenditure, Ramakrishnudu said during these three and a half years, after the YSRCP came to power, the major share of debts was allotted to revenue expenditure.
The audit report of 2019-20 clearly mentioned that Rs 26,000 crore off-budget borrowings were not reflected in the budget, and in 2020-21 and 2021-22 too the off-budget borrowings were not presented even to the CAG, thus burying the facts, Ramakrishnudu said. He demanded that the balance-sheets of the corporations be brought in the public domain and the Chief Minister come for an open debate to present the facts before the public.