Hyderabad: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report said outstanding public debt at the end of the year has increased by 18.04 per cent over the preceding year. In fact, its growth rate was higher than that of GSDP, which grew at 12.61 per cent.
Nearly half of the total outstanding Public Debt (46 per cent) is to be repaid over the next seven years, indicating the need for the State to augment its resources to meet the repayment burden.
State Government has also a liability for off-budget borrowings of Rs 71,131.63 crore to the end of March 2020 (Rs 1 6,077.04 crore during the year 2019-20) taken by various entities on its behalf, which it has not disclosed appropriately as part of its budget documents.
This has the impact of diluting the public financial management and oversight role of the Legislature and placing major sources of funding of Government’s crucial socio-economic projects beyond the control of the Legislature.
Budgetary assumptions of the State Government were not realistic during 2019-20 and control over the execution and monitoring of budget was inadequate. Supplementary Grants/Appropriations were obtained without adequate justification and in some cases, despite the Legislature not approving supplementary provision, expenditure was incurred.
Savings were neither surrendered on time nor were explanations provided to the Accountant General (A&E) for variations in expenditure vis-a-vis allocations. Departments were not cautioned against persistent savings; nor were their budgets varied in accordance with their ability to absorb the allocations.
State Government has persistently been incurring excess expenditure over authorisation during the last few years, which is a cause for concern. While excess expenditure of Rs 84,650.99 crore incurred during the last five years was yet to be regularized by the Legislature, Rs 2,084.03 crore was incurred during 2019-20 without budgetary provision, which undermines the authority of the State Legislature.
Utilisation of budgetary provision under four socio-economic Grants was less than 50 per cent of the allocation during the period 2016-19, which affected socio-economic development in the state.
Delay in submission of Annual Accounts by Government companies and Autonomous Bodies dilutes accountability and impacts the purpose of preparation of accounts. The State Government is yet to comply with Indian Government Accounting Standards, the CAG report said.
