Hyderabad: Despite Andhra Pradesh facing a revenue deficit of Rs 15,900 crore, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will not hike taxes to raise revenues.
Releasing a white paper on the state’s finances on Wednesday, Mr Naidu said taxes were already on a higher side. The per capita taxation in the state had jumped three fold from Rs 2,266 in 2000-01 during TD’s rule to Rs 7,136 by 2010-11 during the Congress regime.
Even the per capita debt had increased from Rs 7,712 in 2003-04 to Rs 20,573 in 2013-14. Blaming the inefficiency of the Congress rule, he added that Rs 1,07,456 crore had been borrowed over nine years.
“It is rather disconcerting to note that Rs 94,728 crore was spent between 2004-05 and 2013-14 to bring under irrigation a meager area of 4.12 lakh hectares while the TD government spent Rs 10,070 crore to irrigate 41.15 lakh hectares between 1995-96 and 2000-04,” Mr Naidu said.
However, to overcome the situation, his government would not impose any new taxes but would seek to improve tax collection and raise resources, he said.
For the current financial year, the state government is banking on the Centre’s support. AP requires Rs 26,000 crore over and above the limits approved by the the Centre for the current year borrowing. This would require relaxation from the limits imposed by FRBM Act, he said.
Regarding the AP government proposing to mortgage land to raise revenues, Mr Naidu said, “Where is the land? We cannot mortgage private land. We are expecting to take up the issue of financial allocations to the state with the 14th Finance Commission. A committee headed by C.S. Rao will come with a detailed presentation to the Commission,” he said.
