Govt failed to decrease debt in 10 years: Congress
The Congress tore into the fiscal management claim of CM Nayab Singh Saini, while focusing on the mounting debt during a discussion on the Budget.
Rohtak MLA BB Batra took a dig at the “long budget speech” of Saini, running into 79 pages. “Even the national Budget read by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had 28-30 pages. Khattar’s last budget speech was 48 pages,” he said.
Comparing the statistics of 2025-26 with Congress tenure, he said the estimated revenue deficit for 2025-26 was Rs 20,599 crore, while in 2013-14, it was Rs 3,975 crore. “You enhanced the revenue deficit six times. You can’t compare with us as we developed roads, infra, set up medical colleges and cities too,” he said. On the projected debt in 2025-26, he said it would be Rs 3.52 lakh crore, whereas in 2014-15, it was Rs 70,925 crore.
“You have mentioned that the outstanding loan of 43 undertakings was Rs 69,922 crore in 2014-15, which was reduced to Rs 68,295 crore in 2023-24. It implies you have failed to decrease the debt in 10 years,” said Batra.
“The capital outlay is proposed to be Rs 16,164 crore, an increase of 27% from the revised estimate of 2024-25. In 2024-25, as per revised estimates, the capital outlay is estimated to be 22% lower than budgeted. Key sectors with the highest cutback in outlay include agriculture (Rs 990 crore), transport (Rs 933 crore), education (Rs 269 crore), and irrigation (Rs 165 crore),” he added.
