Despite liberal central funding, BJP govt pushed state into debt trap: CM

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu today said that the previous BJP government had received liberal funding to the tune of Rs 68,000 crore from the Central Government in the form of revenue deficit grant (RDG) and Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation but still it pushed the state under a huge debt burden. Unhappy with the Chief Minister’s statement, the BJP legislators walked out of the Assembly.

Sukhu, while taking part in the debate on the Budget proposals for 2024-25 in the Vidhan Sabha, said that though his government had raised Rs 29,046 crore loans in the past two years, very little was left for development due to the debt liabilities left by the previous BJP government. “Out of the total loan of Rs 29,046 crore, our government has repaid Rs 20,353 crore as loan and interest on the debt raised by the previous BJP government. As such, only Rs 8,693 crore is available with us for development works,” he added.

As many as 24 MLAs each from the ruling and opposition parties participated in the debate on the Budget proposals for 2025-26. The debate lasted for 15 hours and 30 minutes over four days.

Sukhu said that Rs 3,976 crore of capital expenditure had been proposed in the Budget but in case there was additional income, this amount would be increased to over Rs 5,000 crore.

The Chief Minister said that the previous BJP government had distributed freebies worth Rs 5,000 crore before the 2022 Assembly elections just to return to power. “The previous BJP government had opened more than 1,000 institutions without making budgetary allocation and appointing staff, forcing us to denotify them,” he added.

Even as the Chief Minister shared the details of Rs 40,352 crore loans that the previous BJP government had raised, the opposition legislators started raising slogans and walked out of the House.

“The BJP government had raised Rs 5,745 crore loans in 2018-19, Rs 5,000 crore in 2019-20, Rs 10,888 crore in 2020-21, Rs 8,321 crore in 2021-22 and Rs 10,398 crore till December 2022. Even after raising over Rs 40,000 crore loans in five years, the BJP government did not release the pending dues of the employees, he added.

Sukhu said, “The Budget is based on the resources available and since there has been a reduction of Rs 3,000 crore due to reducing RDG and the loan limit was capped, there has not been much increase in the Budget size. The Central Government has made a cut of Rs 1,700 crore after we restored the old pension scheme (OPS).”

The Chief Minister said that the previous BJP government had received Rs 68,000 crore in five years as the RDG and GST compensation, which was a huge amount. “Besides, the BJP government got another Rs 11,000 crore in installment from the Finance Commission due to Covid outbreak but still it did not pay arrears to the employees,” he alleged.

Sukhu said that on May 1, 2022, the previous BJP government had ordered pay revision but did not give arrears to the employees and our government inherited this liability. He added that in the past two years, the state government had made efforts to mobilise resources and cut down wasteful expenditure along with the focus on good governance.