Bhubaneswar: With the state government having so far borrowed `833.15 crore from the open market during this fiscal, the debt burden on the state government as of July, 2017-18 has increased to `62,411.22 crore.
Finance minister Sashibhusan Behera informed the House about this Monday while replying to member Chandra Sekhar Majhi’s question in writing. The minister said the state government plans to lift `17,803 crore loan from the open market in the current fiscal.
However, the government will pay back `3,414 crore that will result in a net loan of `14,388.82 crore.
If the remaining amount of money is borrowed, the burden may exceed `76,000 crore, sources said. The minister said the state government had raised `13,080 crore from various sources in 2016-17 fiscal including `902 crore from Centre, `7,620 crore from open market, `2,652 crore from NABARD and the rest from other sources.
In the current fiscal, it has borrowed `505 crore from NABARD and `459 crore from the Centre. However, it has already paid back `131crore to provident fund.
Notably, the loan burden was `3860.84 crore in 1989-90 which increased to `7,957.86 crore in 1994-95. The debt burden was `18,100 crore in 1999-2000, `34,051.18 crore in 2004-05, `37,730 crore in 2009-10 and `43,273.38 crore in 2014-15.
The finance minister also revealed that in last five years the state government had to fork out at least `10,000 crore towards subsidy to various firms and organisations under various government schemes and programmes.
He said in 2017-18 fiscal, the government has projected a spend of `1,737 crore towards subsidy. Amid increasing loan burden and dwindling economy of the state, the minister, in his reply to Sanjib Kumar Sahu in writing, said this year the government has set a target for collection of `36,300 crore revenue including `26,800 crore own tax and `9,500 crore non-tax revenue.
Out of this, the government has been able to collect `9,807 crore as of July, 2017 which includes `7,506 crore of its own tax and `2,300 crore non-tax revenue.
The total revenue collection of this fiscal as of July is 15.49 percent more compared to the corresponding period of the previous fiscal (2016-17), Behera said. The major contributors to this collection are `4,112 crore sales tax, `2,200 crore entry tax, `913 crore excise duty from own tax and `1,769 crore mining revenue from non-tax sector.
The minister also said that the state government has projected to get a dividend of `690 crore this fiscal of which it has already received `8.43 crore as of July.
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