In second month of financial year, Telangana faces financial crisis
The state government is not able to pay even pending bills of the previous year.
Hyderabad: In the very second month of the current financial year, the TS government is facing a financial crisis.
The state government is not able to pay even pending bills of the previous year. These bills are mounting due to non-payment.
According to officials, the present financial liabilities of the state government are about Rs 10,000 crore including pending bills. Of this, about Rs 5,000 crore is related to pending bills of various departments. In the previous year, the state government had diverted about Rs 1,000 crore belonging to Centrally-sponsored schemes. Till today, the state government did not release the amounts to the departments concerned.
For example, the Central government has released Rs 16.74 crore to the agriculture department under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana to develop organic farm clusters.
The total scheme cost is Rs 27.84 crore and the TS government has to contribute Rs 11.13 crore as its share. But state government did not release this amount to the agriculture department.
Recently, agriculture department officials held a meeting with finance officials and requested them to release the funds.
The state government has to pay about Rs 3,000 crore to its employees towards Pay Revision Commission arrears. It had announced the release of this amount but due to financial problems, is not in a position to do so.
The state government has to pay about Rs 5,000 crore in pending bills to contractors of various departments. Due to the financial crunch in the previous year, the state government did not clear the bills.
In the last two months, more bills were added to pending bills. The state government has distributed tractors to farmers at 50 per cent subsidy. Under this scheme, a farmer can buy a tractor that normally costs Rs 10 lakh, for Rs 5 lakh, the remaining to be paid to the manufacturer by the state government.
According to officials of the agriculture department, the state government did not pay the subsidy amount to the company till today. Despite increasing the state’s own revenue the government is not able to clear the liabilities.