Chandigarh January 31:
Punjab Congress unit president and former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh is using the State’s poor fiscal management as a tool to tame the SAD-BJP Government in the State, which goes in for Assembly polls in February next year.
He has tacitly shifted the barrel of his gun from the alleged poor law and order situation, slow pace of development to expose how hollow is Punjab’s fiscal position, a charge which the SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and his comrades reject outrightly.
In Punjab, the election-eve rhetorics coupled with a high voltage of political and even personalised attacks are not something new. This time round, the issue of economy has also become a critical electoral tool. The Congress sees lot of chinks in Punjab’s fiscal armour, and hence does not miss an opportunity to go even extra miles in rubbing salt on the ruling alliance, while the SAD-BJP leaders try to counter the Congress attack with the carrot of development.
Punjab has not been able to spend even half of the grants provided in the annual plan size for 2010-11. With just two months left when the current fiscal ends in March, one wonders how the funds-strapped Punjab would have been able to give fillip to development and other projects. This is being used as ammunition by Captain Amarinder to bring home the point that the current regime has ignored and failed in addressing the problem fiscal mismanagement, which is at the roots of various other concerns.
This was what exactly former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal spoke about, following which he was first sacked from the SAD and later removed from the Government as well in October last year. Since then, he has been talking about Punjab’s precarious financial position, marked by around `70,000 crore Central debt. Captain Amarinder too picked up the issue when he was appointed president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) on October 26 last year.
Quoting the Planning Commission, Captain Amarinder recently claimed that the SAD-BJP Government had been able to utilise only 49 per cent of the Central grants in 2007-08, 69 per cent in 2008-09, 85 per cent in 2009-10 and only 40 per cent in the first three quarters of the current fiscal till December 31, 2010. He has even written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to direct banks and financial institutions not to sanction any loans to the State Government without proper scrutiny, lest this money was misused and misappropriated.
The poor financial position of Punjab remains a matter of concern. A lot of money is being diverted to meet many outstanding needs arising out of arrears, pay revisions and subsidies. Punjab’s economy has grown only at a compounded rate of 5.3 per cent as against 8.7 per cent by the country during the last nine years, ending March 2010. The State’s finances experienced major deterioration during 2009-10 when fiscal deficit was worked out at 5 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).
The State’s financial position is marked by insufficient revenues to meet expenditure, inadequate investment for basic infrastructure sectors, stagnating social sector expenditure, pre-emption of high cost borrowed funds for financing current expenditure, large and persistent resource gap, and the accumulation of high debt stock and debt service payments.
Though it remains to be seen how economic concerns influence the people’s voting decision in the coming Assembly poll, what makes one happy is the fact that leaders in Punjab are talking along the lines of development, fiscal prudence and imprudence, austerity measures, improving tax collection and so on. The SAD-BJP leaders too have pinned their electoral hopes on the works of development having taken place in the past four years to win the battle again.
Punjab Congress unit president and former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh is using the State’s poor fiscal management as a tool to tame the SAD-BJP Government in the State, which goes in for Assembly polls in February next year.
He has tacitly shifted the barrel of his gun from the alleged poor law and order situation, slow pace of development to expose how hollow is Punjab’s fiscal position, a charge which the SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and his comrades reject outrightly.
In Punjab, the election-eve rhetorics coupled with a high voltage of political and even personalised attacks are not something new. This time round, the issue of economy has also become a critical electoral tool. The Congress sees lot of chinks in Punjab’s fiscal armour, and hence does not miss an opportunity to go even extra miles in rubbing salt on the ruling alliance, while the SAD-BJP leaders try to counter the Congress attack with the carrot of development.
Punjab has not been able to spend even half of the grants provided in the annual plan size for 2010-11. With just two months left when the current fiscal ends in March, one wonders how the funds-strapped Punjab would have been able to give fillip to development and other projects. This is being used as ammunition by Captain Amarinder to bring home the point that the current regime has ignored and failed in addressing the problem fiscal mismanagement, which is at the roots of various other concerns.
This was what exactly former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal spoke about, following which he was first sacked from the SAD and later removed from the Government as well in October last year. Since then, he has been talking about Punjab’s precarious financial position, marked by around `70,000 crore Central debt. Captain Amarinder too picked up the issue when he was appointed president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) on October 26 last year.
Quoting the Planning Commission, Captain Amarinder recently claimed that the SAD-BJP Government had been able to utilise only 49 per cent of the Central grants in 2007-08, 69 per cent in 2008-09, 85 per cent in 2009-10 and only 40 per cent in the first three quarters of the current fiscal till December 31, 2010. He has even written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to direct banks and financial institutions not to sanction any loans to the State Government without proper scrutiny, lest this money was misused and misappropriated.
The poor financial position of Punjab remains a matter of concern. A lot of money is being diverted to meet many outstanding needs arising out of arrears, pay revisions and subsidies. Punjab’s economy has grown only at a compounded rate of 5.3 per cent as against 8.7 per cent by the country during the last nine years, ending March 2010. The State’s finances experienced major deterioration during 2009-10 when fiscal deficit was worked out at 5 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).
The State’s financial position is marked by insufficient revenues to meet expenditure, inadequate investment for basic infrastructure sectors, stagnating social sector expenditure, pre-emption of high cost borrowed funds for financing current expenditure, large and persistent resource gap, and the accumulation of high debt stock and debt service payments.
Though it remains to be seen how economic concerns influence the people’s voting decision in the coming Assembly poll, what makes one happy is the fact that leaders in Punjab are talking along the lines of development, fiscal prudence and imprudence, austerity measures, improving tax collection and so on. The SAD-BJP leaders too have pinned their electoral hopes on the works of development having taken place in the past four years to win the battle again.
