Brushing aside the criticism made by the Opposition parties particularly the Telugu Desam on the State budget presented in the Assembly yesterday, Finance Minister K Rosaiah today asserted that the Government has the capacity to repay debts raised by it. Every debt raised by the Government was being used for capital expenditure, and net borrowings were in accordance
with the Fiscal Responsibility Budget Management (FRBM) norms. “Repaying capacity will become stronger if percentageof revenue receipts to the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) is higher,’’ he noted. As per official records, debt shown in the budget estimates for 2009-10 is Rs.1,10,092 crore i.e. 6.38 percent increase over budget of Rs.1,03,485 crore. The debt in the revised estimates for 2008-09 stood at Rs.92,465 crore showing 1.73 percent increase over budget of Rs.90,891 crore. Addressing a press conference
at the Secretariat today, Rosaiah claimed that the State Government was well within the FRBM limits in respect of net borrowings.
In reality, all developed and developing countries go for borrowings for capital expenditure. In spite of sound financial position, companies like Reliance also go for borrowings for investments.
There was a need to have public spending to overcome economic recession. It would be difficult to recover (from the recession) if there were no investments on infrastructure
development and in other sectors concerned. State’s repaying capacity has been increasing since the revenue receipts had registered a growth year after
year.
States will progress only if the percentage of revenue receipts to GSDP was more, he said and added that 19.34 percentage of revenue receipts to GSDP was projected in the budget estimates for 2009-10 as against 18.77 in 2008-09.
Replying to a query, the Finance Minister exuded confidence of getting more Central funds to the State under NREGP, JNNURM, IAY etc. “We are confident of getting Central funds to the State because of our performance. “JNNURM programme is a boon to the State since the Centre had increased the budgetary allocations by 144
percent,’’ he said.