The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of Indias report, for the year ending March 2020, tabled in theHimachal Pradesh assemblyon Wednesday revealed thatof the State Government increased from Rs 27,910 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 40,572 crore in 2019-20 registering an increase of 45.37 per cent during the period 2015-20.
The burden of interest payment ranged from nine to 10 per cent of the Revenue Receipts.
During 2015-20, 45.83 to 72.71 per cent of debt receipts were used for discharging existing liabilities.
However, during the five-year period 2015-16 to 2019-20, while GDP has grown at a CAGR (compound annual Growth rate) of 7.69 per cent, the outstanding public debt has grown at a faster rate of 7.77 per cent.
The CAG said that borrowed funds should ideally be used to fund capital creation and developmental activities.
Using borrowed funds for meeting current consumption and repayment of interest on outstanding loans are not sustainable.
It said that during 2015-20, no portion of debt receipts was used for meeting Revenue Expenditure.
The borrowed funds are used for repayment of previous borrowings (principal) and on Capital Expenditure.
It said that there has been a continuous decreasing trend in the growth of revenue receipts except the year 2018-19.
As compared to a growth of 31.37 per cent in 2015-16, the revenue receipts registered a decrease of 0.67 per cent in 2019-20, which resulted in higher dependency on borrowed funds for meeting the current consumption.
Only 33 per cent of the revenue receipts came from the states own Resources comprising taxes and non-taxes, while the remaining 67 per cent was contributed by central transfers comprising the States share in central taxes and duties (15 per cent) and grants-in-aid from GoI (52 per cent).