As the State government tabled a white paper on the financial situation in Punjab over the past ten years on Monday, a heated exchange of words was witnessed in the Punjab Assembly between the treasury and the opposition benches.
While the government accused the previous SAD-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of systematically looting the resources of the State during their decade-long regime, Akali members called the white paper presented by the government “a bundle of lies”.
The white paper presented by the government said Punjab’s own revenues as a share of total revenue had declined from 77.34% in 2006-07 to 68.50% in 2016-17. “As against this in the corresponding period, the share of Central taxes has gone up from 22.66% to 31.50%. This indicates a perceptible decline in the State’s ability to raise resources internally during the last 10 years, 2007-2017,” it noted.
The paper added that fiscal deficit of ₹4,384 crore was recorded in the year 2006-07, which has increased by 168% to ₹11,762 crore in 2015-16. This trend indicates that the government spending was being increasingly financed by raising loans.
“Also the revenue deficit was at 1.38% of the GSDP at the end of financial year 2006-07, it increased 2.18% in the year 2015-16,” pointed out the paper.
