Telangana Assembly| Government ready for debate on loans raised by after Congress government in last one year, says Bhatti Vikramarka  

State government willing to debate loans raised since December, refuting claims of excessive borrowing by previous administration.

The State government has expressed its willingness to allow a debate in the Legislative Assembly over the quantum of loans it had raised since assuming power in December last.

Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka, who holds Finance portfolio, asserted that the government was prepared to prove its claim that the indiscriminate borrowings by the previous administration under Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) resulted in ₹7.11 lakh crore debt burden on the State exchequer. The Deputy Chief Minister was responding to BRS member T. Harish Rao’s charge that the government was spreading false propaganda against the BRS to cover up its failures.

The quantum of loans raised and the guarantees given to government and non-government sector units by the Congress government in the past one year led to a heated debate in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday. Replying to a query during the Question Hour, Mr. Bhatti Vikramarka said the government had given guarantees to the tune of ₹51,277.71 crore till Novermber 30 and an amount of ₹51,891.44 crore was drawn.

The government had availed of FRBM loans of ₹52,118 crore from December last year to November-end and non-FRBM loans drawn by corporations and special purpose vehicles was to the tune of ₹61,991.14 crore. Public sector undertakings on their part raised loans to the tune of ₹10,099.7 crore without government guarantees during the period.

Mr. Harish Rao pointed out that the government had raised borrowings to the tune of ₹1.27 lakh crore in the first year itself and if the borrowings continued, it would amount to ₹6.3 lakh crore at the end of the five year tenure. In contrast, the BRS government had raised loans to the tune of ₹4.12 lakh crore in 10 years and this was proved by the figures released by the RBI and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

“Mr. Bhatti is misleading the House quoting wrong figures and hence, we served a privilege notice against him,” he said. The Deputy Chief Minister however refuted the claim asserting that the government had spent ₹66,000 crore for repayment of principal and interest of loans taken by the previous government. From a stage where the debt servicing burden was ₹6,200 crore a year, the State had come to a stage where it had repaid ₹66,000 crore in one year reflecting the manner in which economy was managed during the previous regime.

The Congress government had not crossed the limits set under the FRBM Act for raising loans and was focussing more on clearing the pending dues left by the previous government. “The previous government has left pending bills of over ₹40,000 crore of which ₹14,000 crore had been cleared so far,” he said. Likewise, the government had cleared dues of ₹11,000 crore pending payment to the power distribution companies.