Chennai, August 9(BPNS)
Tamil Nadu Finance minister PTR Palinivel Thiagarajan has said that the Revenue deficit situation in Tamil Nadu is alarming since 2013- 14 and that the state fiscal situation is in an “unsustainable” position.
The state finance minister was releasing a white paper on the state’s finances as a prelude to the paperless budget to be presented in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly on August 13.
The minister said that the lack of political and administrative will of the AIADMK has led to the precarious situation, the state has fallen in and added that profound structural reforms were required to bring the state out of this situation. He said that the usual business-like approach and attitude has to be changed for bringing out the state from this situation.
PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan also said that these problems can be corrected and added that this was an opportunity for “Once in a generation reform” and added that the DMK government with its will and resilience would bring the state out of this precarious financial situation in the next five years.
The state finance minister also said that the white paper was not brought out for the DMK to take recluse from the commitments it had given to the people of Tamil Nadu during the recently concluded elections.
He said that Tamil Nadu was a revenue surplus state during the previous DMK government in 2006-07 and also in 2007-08. He said that the state recorded revenue deficits in 2009-10 and 2010-11 and this was due to the global financial crisis as also the implementation of the Sixth pay commission recommendations.
The Finance Minister said that the situation turned around in 2011- 12 and 2012-13 when revenue surpluses were seen but the state turned into revenue deficit one since 2013-14.
PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan also said that the state’s revenue deficit as a percentage of GSDP had risen from 0.18% in 2013-14 to 3.16% in 2020-21. The state finance minister said that this was much more than the entire permissible revenue deficit.
He said that now Tamil Nadu has the dubious distinction of being the largest borrower in the open market amongst all the states in the country.
The minister also said that Tamil Nadu has a debt of 5.7 lakh crore projected as on March 31, 2022 and this would lead to each citizen of the state having a burden of Rs 70,000.
