Chennai: Post-GST implementation the state is witnessing a revenue growth and the gross state domestic product in 2017-18 is estimated at 8.03 per cent at constant prices and for 2018-19 economic growth is pegged at nine per cent, state finance secretary K Shanmugham said on Thursday.
Pointing about the challenges faced by the state finance department he said that the implementation of 7th Pay Commission had caused series stress on the state exchequer resulting in higher-than-projected revenue deficit for the year 2017-18. Closure of Tasmac shops along highways and reduction in stamp duty had also affected the revenue to a tune of Rs 1,000 crore, he said.
The revenues are expected to grow at 14 per cent and the expenditure is also growing and the growth of salary expenditure is around 8 to 9 per cent, he said adding that the pay scale revision will an incur an additional expense of '14,719 crore per annum.
Despite the financial burden, the budget has projected the fiscal deficit to GDP ratio at 2.79 per cent for 2018-19, which will be below three per cent fiscal norm. This is after projecting a revenue deficit of '17,491 crore, he said.
According to the budget the state government’s revenue is pegged at Rs 1.81 lakh crore with an all time expenditure of Rs 2.04 lakh crore making the budget a huge deficit. Total debt at the end of 2018-19 is pegged to be around Rs 3.55 lakh crore and every year Rs 40,000-50,000 crore is getting accumulated to the overall debt.
