Vijayawada: The Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, has slammed the YSR Congress government for “worsening” of the state’s economy.
In a statement here on Monday, he cited a report to say AP slipped to the 11th position in 2022-23 from the eighth in the country in 2021-22. The report was prepared by Deutsche Bank chief economist Kaushik Das after a review of the economies of 17 states based on factors like annual budget, fiscal deficit, tax revenue, state debt and GSDP growth rate.
He alleged inefficiency on the part of the state government for such a “poor” performance. He said Telangana, which was having relatively less resources, was in fourth place. AP’s revenue deficit, tax revenue, debts and GSDP were not at encouraging levels, and this led to a steep rise in revenue deficit and fiscal deficit.
At the time of bifurcation of erstwhile AP, its revenue deficit was 2.62 per cent. By 2018-2019, it was brought down to 1.61 per cent and bemoaned the way how it had gone up to 3.60 per cent now, he said.
Yanamala asked as to why the revenue deficit of Rs 16,000 crore in 2018 had gone up to Rs 40,000 crore and also open market borrowings of Rs 2.5 lakh crore in 2018 went up to Rs 4.42 lakh crore now. With all these, nearly Rs 30,000 crore was being paid by the state as interest for the debts it raised, he said.
