Bureau
Chandigarh: Former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda has stated that the government is deliberately presenting roundabout and misleading figures regarding the budget and debt so that the public does not get to know the real situation.
Addressing a press conference today, Hooda challenged the claims of the government through figures and said there is a big contradiction in the figures presented by the government itself. “For example, in 2020-21, the government presented an estimated budget of Rs 1,55,645 crore. Later it was revised to 1,53,384 crores. The original budget was further reduced to 1,35,909 crores. Similarly, the estimated budget in 2022-23 was 1,77,235 crores, which was revised to 1,64,807 crores.
“If we talk about loans, in 2020-21, the government told that the state has a debt of Rs 2,27,697 crore. Whereas in the CAG report, the debt was stated to be Rs 2,79,967 crores and according to the RBI, this debt was Rs 2,62,331 crores. Similarly, in 2022-23, the government showed a debt of Rs 2,43,701 crore across the state, whereas according to the RBI, this debt was Rs 2,87,266 crore. That is, a difference of 44,513 crores was seen in the official data itself,” he pointed out.
“Similarly, when the CAG report will come, then more difference would be seen. In such a situation, it is very unfortunate that the Chief Minister accuses the Leader of the Opposition of presenting different loan figures, while the government itself seems to be deliberately entangled in the putting out different figures,” he said.
Hooda said he stands firm on his point even today. “The state has a debt of more than Rs 4 lakh crore, including internal debt and all liabilities as the government itself told in the budget of 2023-24 that the state has a debt of 2,85,885 crores. The CAG report stated liabilities of Rs 36,809 crore (by March 2022), which increases by 3000 to 4000 crore every year. Therefore, as of today, these liabilities are around 44,000 crores,” he stated.
“Similarly, various departments of the Haryana government owe Rs 46,193 crore to discoms towards electricity bills and unpaid subsidies. As par report uploaded in e-paper business standard dated 26.09.21 as data complied by Ministry of power GOI. This is more liability than all the states in the country. State Public Enterprises have a debt of Rs 47,211 crore. (As stated by hon'able cm in aasembly.)By including all kinds of liabilities on Haryana, the total loan on the state comes to Rs 4,23,229 crore,” he added.
“This is why the Congress is repeatedly demanding a white paper from the government. In this, the total internal debt of the state, public account deposits (small savings), debt taken by public enterprises, additional liabilities (payable by the government to all service providers and suppliers) till March 31, 2023 should be mentioned,” he pointed out.
The former Chief Minister pointed out that the debt figures on the state are also worrying because the debt burden on the state has increased by 4 times from 2014-15 to 2022-23, while the SGDP has increased by only 2.1 times during this period. We have a problem because the growth rate of loans is more than the economic growth rate of the state,” he stated.
Hooda also mentioned that the fiscal deficit of the state is also increasing continuously. “It was 2.07% of SGDP in 2013-14 which has increased to 3.29% in 2022-23. In actual expenditure it may increase up to 3.35%. Similarly, the ratio of debt to GSDP is also worrying as it has gone up from 15.1% in 2013-14, to 25.78% by 2022-23 and it rises to 32.47%, if revised state debt, public account deposits (small savings) and state guaranteed loans are also added,
The government figures themselves show that the government does not even have a budget to meet its daily expenses, because the budget of 2023-24 shows that the government has a total income of Rs 1,09,122 crore, while the expenditure is ₹1,26,071 crore, showing that there is a revenue deficit of Rs 16,949 crore.
He also pointed out that the expenditure on payment of internal debt is also increasing continuously. The government is estimating to take a debt of Rs 64,840 crore in 2023-24, whereas Rs 56,470 crore (principal- 35,220 crore + interest- 21,250 crore) is to be spent on debt servicing. That is, out of the total loan with the government, only Rs 8,370 crore is left for the expenditure.
Hooda pointed out that In the budget, the government has also exaggerated the figures of capital income. For example, in 2019-20, capital income was shown as Rs 1778 crore, while the government received only Rs 54 crore. Similarly, in 2020-21, the government showed an estimated income of Rs 3750 crore, but the government received only Rs 63 crore.
The estimated income in 2021-22 was shown as Rs 5000 crore but the government received only Rs 67.5 crore. The government has shown an estimated capital income of Rs 5394 crore in 2022-23 and Rs 5200 crore in 2023-24. But looking at the past records, it can be guessed that it will hardly be 50-60 crores only. It is clear from this that the government has no money for capital development.
In his budget speech, the Chief Minister said that the government would spend Rs 57,879 crore, which is 31.5% of the total budget, on capital asset creation. Whereas, according to the government itself, Rs 35,220 crore will be spent on loan repayment and Rs 4,198 crore will be spent on loan and advance payments. That means only Rs 18,460 crore will be left with the government for creation of capital assets. Which is just 10% of the budget. In such a situation, the claim of 31.5% proves to be mere speculation.
Hooda said the government every time inflates the budget figures, which later come down to the revised and actual budget to mislead the public. For example, in 2022-23, the government presented an estimated budget of Rs 1,77,256 crore, which was later revised to Rs 1,64,807 crore. As the actual figures come, it will be further reduced, but the government tries to show the loan figures less every time.
In 2022-23, the government had shown an internal debt of Rs 2,43,779 crore, which increased to Rs 2,56,265 crore in the revised budget, an increase of Rs 12,486 crore. Thus, the budget was shown in excess of Rs 24,932 crore, which is 14 per cent.
Around 15-18% inflated budget is presented by the current government every time. In the budget presented in 2015-16, the actual budget was 85% of the estimated budget. The actual budget for 2016-17 was just 83% of the estimated, 2017-18 just 82%, 2018-19 86%, 2019-20 83%, 2020-21 81.4% and 2021-22 86.63%.
Hooda also pointed out the contradictions in the Governor’s address as he informed that there has been an increase of 26.53 percent in GST collection and 22.47 percent increase in excise in 2022-23. “On the contrary, the income from tax in the budget was revised from 82,653 crores to 75,714 crores. In such a situation, it is beyond understanding that if the income of the state is increasing, then how is the tax collection decreasing in proportion to GSDP? How did the tax collection which was 8.1 per cent of GSDP in 2020-21 come down to 7.6 per cent in 2022-23? It appears that the government's tax collection is being fudged or the GDP figures given by the government are messed up,” he pointed out.
The former Chief Minister said that the government has announced to spend Rs 20,340 crore on education, which is only 2% of the GDP, while the new education policy recommends spending 6%. “In such a situation, the announcement made by the government to open 11 new medical colleges seems only on paper. Similarly, the government has announced to spend Rs 9,647 crore on health services, which is only 5.2% of the budget. Whereas in the National Health Policy 2017, 8% expenditure on health services was recommended by the year 2020 only,” he said.
Talking about the agriculture sector, the government has announced to spend Rs 7342 crore on it. “This is just 3.9% of the total budget while 60% of Haryana's population is dependent on agriculture. It is unfair to spend less than 4% for such a large population,” he pointed out.
Hooda stated that the government has made airy claims regarding per capita income as the government has given per capita income of Rs 2,96,685 which brings the annual income of each family is Rs 14,83,425. “There are 30 lakh families in the state who directly depend on agriculture. The NSSO report states that the total income of farmer families does not exceed Rs 22,841 per month i.e. Rs 2,75,000 per annum. On the other hand, the government claims that 30 lakh families (whose income is less than 2.50 lakh) in the state are the beneficiaries of the Ayushman Yojana,” he said.