HDI and SDG indices of A.P. plummeted due to flawed policies of YSRCP, says Yanamala

Former Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu criticizes Andhra Pradesh's declining development indices, high debt, and job loss under YSRCP government.

TDP Polit Bureau member and former Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu has alleged that the rank of Andhra Pradesh in the Human Development Index and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Index fell to 21 and 13 respectively due to the flawed policies.

States such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala fared extremely well in eradicating poverty, and Telangana did quite well despite being not as resource-rich as A.P., Mr. Ramakrishnudu said in a press release on April 6.

Mr. Ramakrishnudu said the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government in the State was so desperate to keep itself afloat that it borrowed ₹4,000 crore on the second day of the FY 2024-25, and it was only the tip of the iceberg in the sense that the total outstanding debt of the government in the last five years stood at a whopping ₹13 lakh crore.

As per a report of the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG), the YSRCP government borrowed ₹257 crore every day on an average in the last financial year aggregating ₹93,805 crore. This was two times more than what was permitted by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) norms, he said.

Mr. Ramakrishnudu said the TDP government had provided 13,88,733 jobs through industrialisation compared to just 9,158 the YSRCP claimed to have provided. The revenue deficit at the time of handing over of the reins by the TDP to the YSRCP in 2019 was ₹13,000 crore, and it ballooned to ₹53,000 crore by February 2024. All the three sectors — agriculture, industries and services — were destroyed, but the YSRCP government painted a rosy picture by showing wrong economic indicators, he alleged.