Jagan Mohan Reddy, the CM of Andhra Pradesh, is leading the state to a path of bankruptcy with his idiotic decisions and unrestrained expenditure to distribute freebies. As per a report by Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), by November 2020, the total debt of the state has reached 3.73 lakh crore rupees, above 30 per cent of state’s GDP.
It has been almost one and a half years since the Jagan government came to power, but it has already destroyed the political economy of Andhra Pradesh with his stupid decisions and freebies. As per the CAG report, the Andhra government already borrowed more than 73 thousand crore rupees by November against the annual target of 48 thousands crore rupees. The borrowing in the first eight months of the ongoing fiscal year is 50 per cent more than the annual target. By the end of the fiscal year, the Andhra government’s borrowing is expected to surpass the double of what was targeted in the budget.
The revenue deficit was estimated at around 18,000 crore rupees but it has already crossed 54,000 crore rupees- almost three times more than estimated- in November itself. The Jagan government has borrowed more than 9,000 crore rupees every month in the ongoing fiscal year.
“The way things are going reminds me of a Telugu movie we were shown during training in the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. It’s something like Appu Chesi.. which means living off debts,” said a senior IAS officer of Andhra Pradesh.
Due to unrestrained borrowing by the Jagan government, the future generations of the Andhra Pradesh will have to pay large taxes because the per annum interest on the current borrowings would be around 35,000 crore rupees from the next fiscal year. “Given our own resources, the Central grants and outgoing towards salaries, pensions and the various doles, we will be required to raise more loans even for debt servicing. That’s what you call the classic debt trap,” a top bureaucrat lamented.
As per reports, the total debt of Andhra Pradesh was only around 97,000 crore rupees when the state was bifurcated in June 2014. However, it has shot to 3.73 lakh crore rupees in just six and a half years. Under Chandrababu Naidu government, the debt reached 2.25 lakh crore rupees, which means it increased by around 1.3 lakh crore rupees in five years.
But, the Jagan government borrowed 1.5 lakh crore rupees in only the last 19 months. However, the Jagan government is not stopping here; it is waiting for another tranche of 9,000 crore rupees to distribute money under the Amma Vodi Scheme. Under this freebie scheme, 43 lakh mothers would be paid 15,000 rupees each to send their kids to school.
Moreover, the government is on freebie distribution spree, especially to Christian communities. Last year, on July 12, the newly elected Andhra Pradesh government led by Jagan Mohan Reddy presented its annual budget. In the budget presented by Buggana Rajendranath, Minister for Finance in the Andhra government announced honorarium for Imams to be enhanced to ₹10,000 per month and for Mouzzans to ₹5,000 per month. Similarly, it also proposed to provide Pastors with an honorarium of ₹5,000 per month.
Later Minorities Welfare Department Principal Secretary Mohd Ilyas Rizvi in the Jagan government announced enhanced financial assistance to Christians for undertaking the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and other Biblical places and it said that pilgrims with an annual income of up to ₹3 lakh would be given ₹60,000 for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jordan River, Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee and those with an income of over ₹3 lakh would get ₹30,000, up from ₹20,000.
On top of that, Jagan also brought-in many stupid decisions like having 5 Deputy CMs, 3 state capitals and so on, which the Andhra government is incurring thousands of crore rupees of extra cost. By an unrestrained rising interest on cost and debt, the Jagan government is not only imposing a huge debt on the coming generations but is also pushing the state towards bankruptcy.