Rs 95,000 cr on irrigation yielded dismal results: AP white paper

According to the AP govt, the spending starting from 2004-05 to 2013-14 was able to bring just an additional 412,000 hectares under farming

The Andhra Pradesh government's white paper on state financial position in the last 10 years has accused the previous leadership in the united state for weakening the state finances by spending irrationally.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu today said the united state had spent excessively on the irrigation sector, up to Rs 94,728-crore. This, however, had not yielded any considerable gains in the net irrigated area, he stated.

According to the AP government, the spending starting from 2004-05 to 2013-14 was able to bring just an additional 412,000 hectares under farming. “Despite such huge allocations, the total irrigated area by the canal systems has, in fact, declined from 2.23 million hectares in 2004-05 to 2.21 million ha in 2011-12,” Naidu said.

Notwithstanding such huge allocations to a single sector, the consolidated debt of the united state zoomed near three-fold to Rs 173,849-crore in 2013-14 as against a debt of Rs 66,393-crore as on 2004-05.

Such irrational spending has weakened the state's commitment to capital expenditure in the last five years fell to 1.79 per cent from 3.5 per cent earlier.

The per capita public debt rose to Rs 20,573 crore in 2013-14, as against Rs 7,712 crore in 2003-04, according to the details of the statement.

The per capita taxation in the state was among the highest in the country at Rs 7,136.76 during 2010-11, when compared with Rs 2,266.90 in 2000-01.  

However, the AP government has no plans to hike taxes to fill the expected revenue gap of Rs 15,000-16,000-crore in the current fiscal year. “We have not contemplated such a move as we think the existing taxes are among the highest,” said the chief minister.

He said in the midst of such financial enormities, the state bifurcation had further aggravated the position of residual state as the revenue deficit will reach 4.84 per cent of the GSDP and fiscal deficit would be 7.18 per cent in the current fiscal.

Farm loan reschedulement
On the farm loan reschedulement, Naidu said: “We are confident the RBI would give the green signal in the next few days.”

Naidu expressed confidence the Centre would earmark the revenue shortfall in the Budget tomorrow, and the budgetary support for the construction of Polavaram national irrigation project in the state.