The coffers are not healthy in any state of the country, or any country, because of the Covid 19 pandemic.
The financial positions of any government were badly hit by the pandemic for the second consecutive year as it struck the world in March 2020.
Several countries have imposed lockdown and business and other activities have come to a grinding halt, hitting the economy hardly and badly.
Most of the governments are going for external borrowings for survival and filling the coffers to meet the expenditure.
AP, which had tabled its 2021-22 budget had the total revenue at Rs 2,29,779 crore. Shockingly, the expenditure too is same leaving just Rs 150 crore closing balance to the exchequer.
While the facts being these, the government had imposed almost 50 per cent cut on its borrowings.
The state had dropped its open market loans, loans from the Central government and other loans, which have been some source of income for the exchequer.
This year, the government, in the budget, had projected the open market loans at Rs 44,525 crore against Rs 54,257 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 48,826 crore in 2019-20.
Similarly, the state government had also shown a 50 per cent slash on its borrowings from the Central government.
AP borrowed Rs 2,030 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 2,500 crore in 2020-21 and had slashed this to Rs 2,000 crore for 2021-22 financial year.
While reducing the debt burden on the exchequer is a welcome move by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government, one wonders how this government wants to fulfil its cash benefits programme, with limited revenue!
