The debt burden on the State has reached Rs 40,792.99 crore by the end of December 2012.
Finance Minister Prasanna Acharya informed this in the Assembly while replying to a question from Bhujabal Majhi (Cong). The debt burden was Rs 38,589.37 crore by the end of the 2011-12 financial year. The State Government incurred a loan of Rs 1,780.23 crore in 2011-12 and Rs 422.39 crore by the end of December in 2012-13 financial year, he said.
The minister, however, maintained that the State Government has not incurred any loan in 2011-12 and by the end of December, 2012 for revenue expenditure. He said the State Government repaid `4,904.14 crore during 2011-12 including `2,576.43 crore interest and `2,327.76 crore principal amount.
Similarly, by December, 2012, `3,277.8 crore was repaid, including `1,883.18 crore interest and `1,394.62 crore principal amount.
Replying to a question from Naba Kishore Das (Cong), the Finance Minister said the State Government spent `3,886.77 crore on salary of 4,90,314 employees in 1999-2000. The expenditure on pension of 1,47,527 persons in the year was `688.41 crore.
The expenditure on salary has increased by 217.55 per cent to `12,342.76 crore in 2012-13 though the number of employees has gone down to 3,90,178. Expenditure on pension has increased by 742.52 per cent to `5,800 crore. The number of pensioners has increased to 2,68,577.