Harish showed wrong debt position to obtain loans beyond FRBM limit: Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka
HYDERABAD: Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka accused former finance minister T Harish Rao of showing wrong debt position of the state in Budgets presented by him during the BRS regime with a view to obtain more loans, beyond the permissible limit under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act.
“How many more loans you needed to quench your thirst, Harish Rao!” Vikramarka asked during a short discussion on “Outstanding Liabilities of the State” in the Assembly on Thursday.
Vikramarka, who also holds the finance portfolio, said that Harish Rao, while presenting the Budget, had shown just 5% risk weight against a loan obtained from the Fisheries Corporation but the state’s liability was 100%. “Budget presented by Harish Rao had just Rs 38,807 crore loan guarantees, whereas the previous Budget presented by K Chandrasekhar Rao showed Rs 1,35,282 crore loan guarantees,” he said.
“Did Harish pay off around Rs 1 lakh debt in a year. No, he didn’t. He just played with the figures. He showed guarantees to a minimal extent using a term ‘tentative risk weighted outstanding guarantee’ amount, which neither his predecessors nor successors used with a view to obtain more loans,” he said.
Vikramarka said that he had shown the actual debt position of Rs 1,20,944 crores in his Budget document. The Congress government availed FRBM loans to the tune of Rs 52,118 crore, paid Rs 17,019 crore towards principal amount and Rs 26,298 crore towards interest.
Responding to the allegation of inflating BRS government’s debt position, the Deputy CM stood by his averments of BRS government taking loans of Rs 6,71,757 crore. The BRS government took FRBM loans to the tune of Rs 3,89,673 crore, Rs 1,27,208 crore government guaranteed loans raised by special purpose vehicles (SPVs) but are serviced by government, Rs 95,462 crore government guarantee loans which are
raised by SPVs and serviced by them and Rs 59,414 crore non-guaranteed loans raised and serviced by SPVs/corporations/institutions (total Rs 6,71,757 crore), he said.
Vikramarka also alleged that the “Opposition BRS misled the House and the people with lies”.
“Harish Rao misled the House using Handbook of Statistics on Indian States 2023-24 published by RBI. The report was prepared based on the Budget copies of previous BRS government,” the deputy CM said.
“The source of the RBI report was the Budget statistics presented by Harish Rao in the Assembly. Now, Harish Rao is using the same report to mislead the House as well as the people,” he added.