Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan said in the Assembly on Friday that the Union government had reduced the borrowing limit of the State for this year by around ₹5,400 crore because of the borrowing beyond the stipulated limit by the AIADMK government in 2020-21.
He said this in response to AIADMK MLA Agri S.S. Krishnamurthy, who heaped praise on the AIADMK government, led by former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, for its achievements, during the discussion on the Budget for 2023-24.
Mr. Rajan questioned whether such over-borrowing was an indicator of good performance. He said the borrowing limit was reduced for the DMK government because of the over-borrowing by the AIADMK government in its final year.
Speaking later to The Hindu, he said the reduction was unlikely to have any impact since the government was planning to borrow less this year. However, since the carrying forward of the unutilised borrowing limit was now allowed, he said the amount might be useful if the government decided to borrow to the maximum allowed limit next year if the economic situation worsened because of a recession or other factors.
Undoing the reduction
While the Union government has informally communicated to officials from the State’s Finance Department that the previous government’s over-borrowing was the reason for the reduction, Mr. Rajan told The Hindu the State government was hoping for a formal communication of the same so that it can explore the possibility of getting the reduction undone, if needed.
Earlier, Mr. Krishnamurthy alleged the State’s budget for 2023-24 had many shortcomings. He said the Budget had nothing towards the welfare of government employees and transport workers. He questioned if the State government’s ‘Focus Blocks’ programme announced this year was simply a renaming of a similar scheme to develop 100 blocks introduced by the AIADMK government in the past.
As Mr. Krishnamurthy continued his criticism of the Budget and the State government, Leader of the Assembly Durai Murugan said that while the DMK government in Tamil Nadu allowed such criticism in the Assembly, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had been disqualified from Parliament.
