YSR Congress party president and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Saturday accused the Chandrababu Naidu government of messing up the state finances in the last 14 months.
Quoting the latest figures mentioned by Comptroller and Auditor General in its report, Jagan said during the financial year 2024-25, the year-on-year growth of state government’s own revenues (including tax revenues and non-tax revenues) was only 3.08%.
This is with respect to the fiscal year during which provisional estimates of the Central government for India’s GDP growth during 2024-25 is 9.8% and the corresponding growth of Central Government revenues is 12.04%.
“However, if AP’s economy is really growing at a pace of 12.02% as falsely claimed by the TDP alliance government, why would the State Government revenues growth be as low as 3.08%?” he asked.
Jagan said during the current fiscal year 2025-26, it was expected that there would be some level of recovery and that the state revenues would demonstrate a good growth over the already subdued revenues during 2024-25.
“However, during the first four months of this fiscal year, the year-on-year growth indicates continuity of the same distress. Goods and Service Tax and Sales Tax reflect consumption and the aggregate of the GST revenues and Sales Tax revenues were lower during the first four months of this financial year when compared with the corresponding period last year, the performance during which was already subdued,” he said.
If we take into consideration, the CAGR of revenues over the first four months of the two-year period 2023-24 to 2025-26, the situation is even more distressing with the state’s own revenues growing at only 2.39%, when compared with a figure that should normally have been around 10%.
“Another aspect is the state debt. Even if all categories of debt are taken into consideration i.e. public debt, public account, state government guaranteed PSU debt and non-state government guaranteed PSU debt, the growth of liabilities during the five-year period 2019-2024 is Rs 3,32,671 crore,” he said.
However, the aggregate liabilities contracted during the first 14 months of the TDP alliance government is worryingly high at Rs 1,86,361 crores (56% of what previous government borrowed over a five-year period).
“With revenue growth being very low and debt increasing at astronomical rate, the @ncbn alliance Government must seriously rethink on their Governance model leading to rampant corruption prevalent at all levels,” he criticised.
