State’s public debt soars to Rs 87,063 crore

Kerala might be God’s own country, but God apparently has little to do with the state’s finances. Each person in Kerala owes `26,067, with the state’s public debt amounting to a whopping `87,063.83 crore, Finance Minister K M Mani informed the Assembly on Tuesday.

  The Finance Minister gave details about the per capita and public debt while replying to a question by K S Saleekha of the CPM.

  At the end of March 2011, at the fag end of the LDF rule, public debt had stood at `78,673.24 crore.

 After the UDF Government came to power, the state had availed of  `6453.31 crore by way of loans, he said.

Of this, the government had asked for ` 2,924 crore to be written off.

 Replying to another question, Mani said that Revenue arrears amounted to `4,962 crore.

The Forest Department owed Rs 185.04 crore, Stationery Department ` 12.83 crore, the Police Department, `82.42 crore and the Factories and Boilers Department `1.06 crore.