Chief Minister Raman Singh on Saturday cast aside worries of a higher debt burden in future while expressing his resolve to borrow additional funds from financial institutions for maintaining Chhattisgarh’s galloping pace of development.
“We (the Government) are not scared of borrowing more. Our current debt burden is well within the prescribed 3 per cent limit under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act,” he said. The Budget cannot be the only financial resource to maintain pace of the development process. One needs to borrow more from other financial instititutions, Singh remarked while addressing a crowded news conference after delivering his budget speech at the Chhattisgarh Assembly here.
He said that Chhattisgarh’s financial situation is fully under control and “we have a better financial situation now,”The Chief Minister stated that Chhattisgarh’s debt burden is pegged at 3 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) compared to Centre’s higher 4.8 per cent. “We are also not scared of paying a higher quantum of interest for our future borrowings from other institutions for the sake of development.”
“If one compares Chhattisgarh’s debt position with other States, the total debt burden of the State is minimum at 12.5 per cent of the GSDP. And if you compare this with the average of other States taken together , it is 24.4 per cent whereas it is almost half in Chhattisgarh,” the Chief Minister remarked. The debt burden as percentage of the GSDP in Odisha is 18.5 per cent, Haryana (18.6 per cent) and in Maharashtra it is 19.7 per cent, the Chief Minister stated.
The quantum of interest paid on debt in Chhattisgarh is minimum at 0.7 per cent of the GSDP whereas in Jharkhand it is 1.3, Karnataka 1.4 and Maharashtra 1.4. On the issue of Chhattisgarh’s implementation of the Food and Nutrition Security Act 2012, the Chief Minister stated that only providing rice at Rs 1 per kg cannot take care of the needs of the beneficiaries and they need many more resources to earn a livelihood. “However, the Rs 1 per kg rice has provided immense relief to the poor in Chhattisgarh.”
“The Chhattisgarh Government has brought 85 per cent of the people under its Food and Nutrition Security Act while the Centre’s coverage of beneficiaries under its Food Security Act is 67 per cent,” Singh said. Over the issue of Chhattisgarh’s share of funds from the Central pool, the Chief Minister commented: “There are delays encountered in receiving Central funds .The Chhattisgarh Government had, as a result, advised the Centre, to release the full quota of funds provisioned for other states as more than 30 per cent of the funds are deducted in a financial year for not being received by the States on time.”
The biggest chunk of Chhattisgarh’s Budget outgo is for Agricuture and Food sector at more than 8 per cent, the Chief Minister said.