Chennai: Tamilnadu Finance and Human Resources Management Minister P T R Palanivel Thiagarajan today released the White Paper on the State’s finances, which claimed that the State is under huge debt.
According to the White Paper, Tamilnadu’s debt in the current year stands at Rs 4,85,502 crore.
The public debt is Rs 2,63,976 per family in Tamilnadu.
Palanivel Thiagarajan said that total revenue receipts of Tamilnadu has declined to 8.7 per cent of GSDP in 2020-21 from the peak 13.35 per cent of GSDP in 2008-09.
SOTR went down from 11.46 per cent between 2006 and 2011 to 4.32 per cent between 2016 and 2021. ‘Zero Budget is beneficial only for financially empowered’, he said. According to the Minister, the worsening deficit situation has led the State to be over-reliant on debts.
Hitting out at the previous AIADMK regime, he said, ‘Tamilnadu lost Rs 2,577 crore since the previous government failed to conduct local body election on time.’
According to the Minister, grants in aids increased from 8.13 per cent from 2006 to 2007 to 17.10 per cent of revenue receipts in 2020 to 2021 which undermines the financial independence and federalism.
The loss of the State Transport Undertakings (STU) in 2020 to 2021 is Rs 42,143.69 crore, which was Rs 871.69 crore in 2011 to 2012, he said and added that STUs are making a loss of Rs 59.15 for every kms operated.
He said that the deterioration in the finances of Tamilnadu in the past seven years will be reformed in the next five years.
The white paper was released today ahead of the presentation of Tamilnadu’s revised budget for 2021-2022, scheduled on 13 August.
While the budget will be an e-budget or paperless budget for the first time in the history of the State, the white paper is being viewed as a prelude to the budget.
Soon after DMK came to power in May, the Finance Minister had said he would bring out a white paper.