The Telangana State public debt is set to touch ₹2.29-lakh crore in 2020-21, up from an estimated ₹1.99-lakh crore in 2019-20.

The State debt is poised to go up by nearly ₹31,000 crore in FY2021, up 21 per cent over the current financial year and will be 20.5 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product.

According to the financial statements submitted during the State Budget presented by Finance Minister T Harish Rao, the per capita debt for the State with a population of about 3.7 crore works out to over ₹61,000 by the end of fiscal 2021.

Significantly, the per capita income, a measure of how the State is faring shows, that it is about ₹2,28,216 during the current fiscal, which is ₹93,166 higher than the national average of ₹1,35,050.

Slowdown hits GSDP

According to advanced estimates, the Gross State Domestic Product for 2019-20 is estimated at ₹9,69,604 crore at current prices indicating a growth of 12.6 per cent over the previous fiscal.

Due to the economic slowdown, there has been a slight decline in the growth of GSDP from 14.3 per cent in 2018-19 to 12.6 per cent in 2019-2020. However, the decline is much lower than that of the national GDP growth which slid from 11.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

The Budget estimates show that the State plans to raise up to ₹35,500 crore as public debt. This would be through a combination of open market loans of up to ₹34,000 crore and ₹1,000 crore as loan from the Central government and the balance through floating debt.

Apart from the debt that the State has piled up over the years, it has also extended guarantees of over ₹40,000 crore for loans borrowed for the irrigation sector and by some State undertakings.

The Budget expects that the public debt repayment during the next financial years to be around₹7,000 crore.

Sector-wise allocation of the ₹1,82,914.42-crore Budget for 2020-21 shows that Panchayat Raj accounted for₹23,005 crore; Scheduled Caste Development Fund ₹16,534 crore; Municipal administration ₹14,809 crore; Rythu Bandhu ₹14,000 crore; housing ₹11,917 crore; irrigation ₹11,054 crore; power ₹10,416 crore; and about ₹10,000 crore for the Hyderabad infrastructure, including Musi river front development.

The State government has estimated that its capital city requires about ₹50,000 crore over next five years.

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