Punjab debt to double in five years: CAG

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 4

Punjab’s financial crisis is set to worsen with the public debt likely to reach Rs 3.73 lakh crore by 2024-25, according to the latest report of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India.

As per projections made by the CAG using Semilog Linear Regression model, the state’s public debt will be Rs 3,73,988 crore by 2024-25, which is more than double the public debt of Rs 1,79,130 crore as on March 31, 2019.

The debt swelled around four times in the past 10 years. It was around Rs 40,000 crore when the SAD-BJP alliance came to power in the state in 2006-07. A decade later, when they lost elections in 2016-17, the debt stood around Rs 1,53,773 crore.

Even the Congress rule over the past four years could not bring economy back on track. Between 2016-17 and 2018-19, the state saw the debt go up by around Rs 25,500 crore. For the past many years, the state has been repaying its earlier borrowings utilising around 73 per cent of its new borrowings.

After meeting various liabilities, the state was generally left with only 5-10 per cent of its borrowings to be utilised for capital expenditure during 2014-19.

The situation is likely to worsen in future. Debts of around Rs 43,377 crore will become due for repayment over the next three years.

The CAG pointed out that the power subsidy being given to the agriculture sector was one of the main reasons behind the state’s poor economic condition. During 2018-19, power subsidy stood at Rs 8,435 crore, registering an increase of Rs 1,857 crore (28 per cent) over the previous year amount of Rs 6,578 crore.