Bhubaneswar: Orissa government was
contemplating to take a loan or Rs 4,463.84 crore this fiscal
though the state's total debt burden has mounted to Rs
36,366.01 crore by January, 2010.
This was stated by Finance Minister Prafulla Ghadai
while replying to a question in the Assembly.
"Of the proposed loan, the government has planned to
raise Rs 1,890.26 crore from open market borrowing", he said.
During the last nine years, Ghadai said, the state
government had talem a loan of Rs 15,428.64 crore.
The state's debt burden was Rs 9,219 crore in 1996 and
Rs 21,001.90 crore in 2000-01, the minister said.
The government said it paid Rs 2,889 crore towards
interest during 2008-09 which resulted in bringing down the
rate of interest payment in subsequent years.
In response to the opposition allegation that the
Naveen Patnaik dispensation had almost doubled the amount of
loan during its 10-year-rule, Ghadai said the previous
Congress government left a debt burden of Rs 21,001.90 crore
during five year's of its rule from 1995 to 2000.
Stating that taking loan was a sign of progress for a
developing state like Orissa, Ghadai claimed other states
had taken more loans.
Ghadai also claimed that the state government had
provided jobs to 1.5 lakh youths during last nine years.
PTI
First Published: Monday, March 15, 2010, 21:28