Telangana should repay ₹2.67 lakh crore principal, interest on off-budget borrowings by 2033-34
CAG faults the govt. for not detailing quantum of extra budgetary resources/ off-budget borrowings
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has faulted Telangana government, formerly led by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, for not detailing the quantum of extra budgetary resources/ off-budget borrowings (EBR/OBBs) for implementing six schemes and four projects.
“The State government has neither detailed the quantum of borrowings nor disclosed the names of entities through which EBR/OBB was raised in the Budget documents,” the CAG said in the State Finance Audit Report for the financial year 2022-23. The report said when the entity-wise/ institution-wise details of OBBs were sought specifically, the government intimated audit to obtain the same from the corporations/ companies.
The CAG gave out details of the OBBs as well as year-wise details of the repayment of market loans and interest in the next 10 years. Accordingly, the State has raised OBBs of ₹1.09 lakh crore and will have to repay ₹2.67 lakh crore, including an interest component of ₹1.64 lakh crore, by 2033-34.
The State, the report said, raised OBBs of ₹64,652 crore for Kaleshwaram project, ₹22,428 crore for Mission Bhagiratha, ₹12,953 crore for Palamuru-Rangareddy lift irrigation scheme and ₹7,731 crore for two-bedroom housing schemes. In addition to other schemes which involved smaller loans, the total OBBs stood at ₹1.09 lakh crore.
In respect of repayment, the premier auditing agency said the State will have to pay ₹2.67 lakh crore towards interest and principal over 10 years from 2023-24 to 2033-34. Accordingly, ₹30,166 crore, including principal amount of ₹9,341 crore and interest of 20,825 crore, should be paid during 2023-24 and it would be ₹33,063 crore, including principal amount of ₹13,118 crore and interest of ₹19,945 crore, for the current year.
In addition, the State government had the liability to repay ₹19,210 crore as principal in the next 10 years in respect of borrowings taken from institutions like National Small Savings Fund (₹9,477 crore), UDAY bonds (₹8,031 crore) and Nabard (₹5,526 crore).
The CAG said that ideally, market borrowings should be utilised for creation of capital assets through capital expenditure. It could be seen that in 2018-19, market borrowings were lesser than capital expenditure indicating that they could have been fully utilised for creation of capital assets. “However, during the past four years, capital expenditure is much lower than the market borrowings indicating that they were being utilised for purposes other than capital expenditure,” the report said.
The CAG expressed concern that despite being revenue surplus, capital expenditure was less than market borrowings which were utilised for providing loans and advances. “Substantial amounts of Loans and Advances are utilised for repayment of OBBs/loans,” the CAG said.
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