With 'khali khazana', Congress to face uphill task to fulfill 'vachan patra' promises

BHOPAL: With debt piling up on the state, the new Congress government stares at a major economic crisis — which it has inherited from the previous government — to implement its populist schemes announced in the run up to the assembly elections. Bureaucrats in the state secretariat have already started an exercise to keep the statistics ready to be presented before the new chief minister in the next few days.
The poor financial condition of the state can also be gauged from the fact that for the last few years, the state had been rescheduling repayment of debts and interests.
After almost ‘khali khazana’ and three installments of loans in October and December, the new government is likely to start 2019 with another installment of the loan to run the government in the last quarter of the year, said highly placed sources.
Though the finance department gazette shows the state under a whopping Rs 1,60,871.9 debt, sources say it is actually Rs 1,87,636.39 crore.
Sources said the outgoing BJP government spent about Rs 10,000 crore for the Sambal scheme alone. While taking the loan earlier this month, an ordinance issued by the government said, the loan would also be utilised for strengthening the power discoms.
Talking to TOI, former finance minister Jayant Malaiya revealed power bills worth Rs 5,146 crore were waived under the Sambal scheme before elections.
Taking a dig at the new government, Malaiya who lost the election from Damoh, said, “Congress has made tall promises without understanding the economic health of the state,” giving a hint at the poor financial health of the state.
However, he hastened to add, “We followed a strict economic discipline maintaining the state of revenue surplus.”
Congress spokesmen Bhupendra Gupta said, “We may be getting a khali khazana after a financial mismanagement by the BJP government, we are committed to fulfilling all the promises including the farmers' loan.”
Highly placed government sources said, 41 lakh farmers in Madhya Pradesh took loans worth Rs 56,377 crore. And there is another category of 21 lakh defaulter farmers with Rs 14,300 crore non-performing assets (NPA), highly placed government sources said.
They include the farmers who have taken a loan of more than Rs 2 lakh also.
According to Malaiya, after strict rules and regulations of the Reserve Bank of India, the government would also not be able to take loans of high amount.
“At the most Rs 1000-Rs 800 crore, but it would not serve the purpose,” he said.
After issuing gazette notification, the finance department on October 5, October 12 and on November 9 had taken loans worth Rs 500, Rs 600 and Rs 800 crore loan. The last amount was taken on December 4.
Government sources said, “More loan is offing in January to run the government in the last quarter of this fiscal,” sources maintained.