State’s loan burden up by over Rs 55Kcr under BJD

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Bhubaneswar: The state government’s debt burden has increased by `55,426.53 crore from financial year 2000-01 till July end this year, said finance minister Sashi Bhusan Behera, Monday.
In a written reply to a query of MLA Sanatan Mahakuda, Behera said that loan burden on the state at the end of 2000-01 was `21,001.88 crore, which increased to `76,428.41 crore till July end of this fiscal year. Notably, BJD-led government is ruling the state since 2000.
The minister said the state has borrowed `99,031.30 crore between 2000-01 and July-end of financial year 2018-19 while only `37,703.64 crore loan were repaid during the period.
It means the loan burden increased by nearly 62 per cent in comparison to the repayment of the existing loan.
In a detailed statement, he said the state had borrowed the highest amount in past three years—2015-16 (Rs11,625.31 crore), 2016-17 (Rs13,080.17 crore) and 2017-18 (Rs 14,419.41 crore).
However, the government has made repayment of loans worth `2,881.37 crore in 2015-16, Rs2,962.05 crore in 2016-17 and `2,690.21 crore in the last financial year. Till July of 2018-19, the state has raised `3074.89 crore while `511.13 crore was repaid.
The government had borrowed `8,000 crore from only open market during the year 2017-18. As per the projection made by the government in the last annual budget, the total debt burden of Odisha will be `91,943 crore by end of the 2018-19 fiscal year, which is 20.73 per cent of the gross state domestic product (GSDP).
On steps taken by the government to decrease the debt burden, the minister said the state government was not accepting the national small saving fund (NSSF) from Centre and repaid the high interest charged loan taken from open market and NSSF.
For proper fiscal management, the state has got loan waiver amounting to `1909.50 core from Centre as per the recommendation of the twelfth Finance Commission.
Similarly, loan worth `130.17 crore, pending between 2011-12 and 2014-15 on account of various schemes, was also waived off, he added.