Yanamala slams YSRC for pushing AP into debt trap

Vijayawada: Telugu Desam senior leader Yanamala Ramakrishnudu slammed the YSR Congress government for resorting to borrowing huge amounts of money and pushing AP into a debt trap.

In a statement issued here Saturday, the leader of the opposition in the AP Legislative Council flayed the minister for finance Buggana Rajendranath Reddy for trying to mislead the people by not presenting the facts on the state's financial condition.

He said that though the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and CRISIL were cautioning on AP’s poor financial status, the state government was ignoring it and instead misleading the people on the economic status of the state. He said that recently Deutsche Bank chief economist Kaushik Das revealed in his report that AP had slipped to 11th position from eighth in terms of states’ financial status in the country. He said that the CRISIL had even reduced the rate of Amaravati bonds.

He flayed the state government for failing to disclose details on the quantum of debts raised through several corporations by keeping the state government as a guarantee and also on the quantum of loans being used by the state government. He also turned critical against the state government for failing to respond to a challenge to publish white paper on the state's financial condition.

The TD senior leader alleged that state government’s financial misappropriation was resulting in great suffering to the people belonged to SC, ST, BC and minorities and said that the debts raised were being used to pay interest on loans and hike in charges, laying taxes and diversion of sub plan funds were depriving social justice to such sections of the people. He said that this resulted in lowering people’s purchasing power and savings.

He said that the poor financial management and rise in prices of essential commodities resulted in people belonging to SC, ST, BC and minorities to bear an additional burden of Rs 1.79 lakh per family in the last 53 months of Jagan Reddy’s rule in the state.