The Congress government headed by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has decided to release a White Paper on the State’s finances soon and asked the officials to submit detailed information in this direction.
The departments concerned were asked to furnish information pertaining to expenditure made in the last 10 years and the benefits that reached the last mile by spending the amounts. The issue assumes significance as the Congress had been charging the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government of indulging in misuse of the State exchequer and thus, pushing the revenue surplus State into “debt trap”.
From total debt of around ₹60,000 crore inherited due to the bifurcation of the erstwhile united State, Telangana’s outstanding public debt crossed ₹ 3.5 lakh crore by the end of the first half of the current fiscal and this is in addition to over ₹1.3 lakh crore guarantees given to different corporations over the past few years. The government had made a provision of ₹22,407 crore for debt servicing in the current year’s budget indicating the magnitude of the debt.
