Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh finance minister Buggana Rajendranath alleged that Telugu Desam (TD) misled people by making false propaganda over the state finances and clarified that the state was heading towards double-digit growth. He said the state’s growth rate increased after the YSR Congress assumed power in 2019-20 but later the Corona crisis had a huge impact which was a national and international phenomenon. He stated that the government had detailed accounts for every loan and expenditure.
Rajendranath said in 2020-21, the world saw the biggest health crisis of the century in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic and no region, national, state or local government in the world had been able to avert a catastrophic loss to humanity and the economy. He said we must all remember the fact that economic activities were disrupted by the Covid-19 at a time when the joint Andhra Pradesh state was struggling with unscientific, unjust and partition challenges.
Rajendranath said during the last year of the TDP government in 2018-19, there were no external difficulties for the economy but Andhra Pradesh GSDP growth rate slowed sharply from 10.09 per cent in 2017-18 to 4.88 per cent in 2018-19, the lowest among other major states in the country due to TDP government failures. He alleged that TDP leader Yanamala Ramakrishna despite serving as finance minister for many years was trying to mislead people by calculating economic growth at current prices against the actual GSDP figures of 2020-21.
The finance minister explained that under Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy government, the GSDP growth rate had increased to 7.23 per cent in 2019-20, making Andhra Pradesh the fourth largest in the country. He said despite severe Covid difficulties, the AP government had narrowed the GSDP deficit to 2.58 per cent in 2020-21, which was better than many states like Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
Rajendranath said the per capita income growth rate of Andhra Pradesh had declined from 14.6 per cent in 2017-18 to 10.11 per cent in 2018-19 under the previous TDP government. In 2019-20, under the Jagan Mohan Reddy government, the per capita income growth rate took an attractive turn with 10.63 per cent which was the 3rd fastest growth rate in the country. He further said when the Corona epidemic devastated the world in 2020-21, the PCI growth rate was minus -4 per cent nationally, while Andhra Pradesh was able to contain it to 1.03 per cent.
Rajendranath said tax revenue stood at Rs 57,378 crore at the end of this financial year due to effective governance by the government which was just 4 per cent lower than in 2019-20. He stated that state tax revenues recorded an attractive growth rate of 34 per cent from April-November 2020 to April-November 2021. The finance minister said the increase in state tax revenues would not only continue in 2021-22 but would accelerate further.
The finance minister said the present government of Andhra Pradesh had borrowed money in the manner allowed by the Centre to overcome the Covid-19 crisis and will show calculations of every rupee.
