Odisha’s debt burden will increase to Rs.56,640 crore as the government has made a budgetary provision to borrow around Rs.12,800 crore by the end of this fiscal, a minister said on Monday.
The Odisha government has targeted to borrow Rs.12,800.38 crore from different sources, increasing its debt burden to Rs.56,640.13 crore by the end of 2015-16, Finance Minister Pradeep Kumar Amat said in reply to a question by BJP legislator Dilip Ray in the assembly.
The minister said the state government intends to raise loan of Rs.1,634 crore from the Centre, Rs.300 crore from the National Small Savings Fund, Rs.800 crore from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, Rs.2,710 crore from NABARD and other sources and Rs.7,356.38 crore from the open market.
The loan burden was Rs.18,100 crore in 1999-2000, Rs.37,730 crore in 2009-10 and Rs.43,273.38 crore in 2014-15, Amat said.
The BJP MLA had, in his question, observed that despite the government’s tall claims on revenue generation, 45 percent of its income was spent on repaying loans.
