DW BUREAU / Shimla

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Friday accused the previous BJP government of pushing the state into a "debt trap". He alleged that the erstwhile BJP government received liberal grants of about Rs 68,000 crore from the Centre as GST compensation and revenue deficit grants, but it spent the funds on freebies instead of repaying the debts.

Replying to the four-day debate on 2025-26 budget, Sukhu said that his government took loans of Rs 29,046 crore in the past two years, out of which Rs 12,266 crore were spent on interest payment and Rs 8087 crore on debt repayment and only Rs 8693 crore was available for developmental work.

Sukhu said that during 2025-26, Rs 3976 is proposed for capital expenditure but the government would make efforts to increase it to Rs 5,000 crore, he said and alleged the BJP government raised loans of Rs 40,352 crore during five years. The BJP government took loans of Rs 5745 crore in 2018-19, Rs 5,000 crore in 2019-20, Rs 10, 888 in 2020-21, Rs 8321 crore in 2021-22 and Rs 10,398 crore in 2022-23 till December 2022 but did not pay the arrears of revised pay and pensions to employees. Besides, the government was given Rs 11,000 to tackle recession during the Covid-19 pandemic, he alleged.

Asserting that the budget is based on resources, Sukhu said the reduction in RDG and lowering the borrowing limit caused a loss of Rs 3000 crore to the government and it also imposed a cut of Rs 1700 crore in borrowing, following restoration of the Old Pension Scheme and hence, the budget's size could not be increased.

Talking to mediapersons outside the House, Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur said, "We had a very meaningful discussion on the budget and were hoping that the chief minister would come out with real facts but he is adamant and instead of giving the correct facts, giving distorted figures of loans." He said that when he was speaking on the budget, the chief minister interrupted him four times and he rose only once, but the correct figures were not given. He said the previous BJP government raised loans of Rs 38,500 crore during the five-year tenure, and deducting the interest payment and debt repayment, the net borrowings were Rs 19,600 crore but the present government has already raised loans of Rs 30,000 crore and become the "fastest loan-raising government".

(editor@dailyworld.in)