CHENNAI: While the State government’s debt level rises, the State’s repaying capacity also increases, and the amount borrowed was spent on welfare and developmental measures, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam said on Saturday while explaining the rationale behind State’s borrowings during the interim budget discussion in the Assembly.
Referring to DMK president MK Stalin’s claim that while Rs 44,084 crore was borrowed till DMK was in power, the later AIADMK governments took unnecessary loans to the tune of Rs 3.55 lakh crore, the Deputy CM said, “These allegations are made with malicious intent. In 2010-11, the Gross State Domestic Product of Tamil Nadu stood at Rs 5.19 lakh crore and in 2020-21 it has gone up to Rs 19.43 lakh crore.
Since the Gross State Domestic Product has been increasing along with the debts, our repaying capacity is also on the rise.” “A product that cost Rs 10 long ago cannot be expected to cost the same even today. Prices of everything has gone up and it would affect the fund requirement of projects. Due to Covid and lockdown, TN faced a loss in revenue receipts to the tune of Rs 38,674.52 crore.
If the government had initiated severe measures to contain revenue expenditure, the public would have had to bear the brunt. So, we had to borrow to meet capital expenditure and for welfare schemes,” he added.
Sharpening his attack against Stalin, Panneerselvam said, “The DMK leader is making false promises now to win the polls. But he does not realise that the people lost confidence in him long ago.”