Telangana registers lowest market borrowings in 2022-23

Telangana availed market borrowings amounting to Rs.40,150 crore and also scored the lowest debt to GSDP ratio of 25.3 percent among five southern States

Hyderabad: Telangana has emerged with one of the lowest market borrowings among major States in the financial year of 2022-23. The State availed market borrowings amounting to Rs.40,150 crore and also scored the lowest debt to GSDP ratio of 25.3 percent among five southern States.

As per the year-end reports of the Reserve Bank of India, Telangana’s gross market borrowings were pegged at Rs.40,150 crore and the net market borrowings stood at Rs.30,922 crore. While net borrowing is the amount borrowed during the fiscal year, gross borrowing includes net borrowing for the year and the repayment of past loans.

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Thus, the State repaid past loans amounting to Rs.9,228 crore during last fiscal.

Further, this is the lowest gross market borrowings obtained by the State in the last three financial years, with Rs.43,784 crore in 2020-21 and Rs.45,716 crore in 2021-22. Most of the States availed higher borrowings due to reduced revenue owing to Covid-19 pandemic during these two fiscals.

During the fiscal of 2022-23, all other major States, especially those ruled by BJP excluding Karnataka, obtained higher loans than Telangana, more than the permissible limits under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. While Maharashtra stood at the top with market borrowings of Rs.72,000 crore (much higher than previous two years), Gujarat availed Rs.43,000 crore, Haryana received Rs.45,158 crore, Karnataka with Rs.36,000 crore, Madhya Pradesh with Rs.40,158 crore and Uttar Pradesh availed Rs.55,612 crore among the BJP-ruled States.

Kerala obtained the lowest market borrowing of Rs.30,839 crore among the non-BJP-ruled States, while Punjab got Rs.45,500 crore, Andhra Pradesh took Rs.57,478 crore and Tamil Nadu availed Rs.87,000 crore.

Interestingly, Telangana has the lowest Interest Payments ratio in south Indian States with 11.3 per cent followed by 14.3 per cent each by Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The State is also ranked 11th among all States across the country in terms of outstanding liabilities till the end of financial year 2021-22.

Recently, union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy and several other BJP leaders claimed that Telangana borrowed over Rs.8 lakh crore worth loans from various organisations including the State government debt of over Rs.3.12 lakh crore. He alleged that through PSUs, corporation banks, NBFCs, NABARD, Power Finance Corporation and RBI, the government raised a total Rs.8 lakh crore debt.

However, the numbers revealed by the Centre say otherwise. In February this year, the union Finance Ministry informed the Parliament that the total debt of Telangana and other organisations had reached around Rs.4.33 lakh crore by February this year for the financial year of 2022-23. Considering the RBI report at the end of March, the total debt is unlikely to be more than an estimated Rs.4.5 lakh crore.