HYDERABAD: AP government’s financial position has gone from bad to worse. The state government has taken more than Rs 14,000 crore as hand loans (ways and means advance) in the second quarter in the current financial year.
Generally, state governments take ways and means advances in the last quarter of a financial year, but the AP government has taken an advance in the second quarter itself.
The state government has taken advances almost equal to market borrowings — Rs 16,000 crore against the Central Government’s approval of Rs 23,000 crore for the present financial year. The government is struggling to mobilise revenues to meet the state’s requirements, with expenditures over shooting the annual Budget by leaps and bounds. To meet the fund requirement, the state government is going for ways and means advances along with market borrowings.
For the current financial year, the Central Government has allowed the state government to contain market borrowings to the extent of Rs 22,132 crore against the state government’s estimates of Rs 26,820 crore in the Budget. By the end of second quarter itself the state government had borrowed Rs 16,000 crore. In the next six months’ period, the AP government will be left with a balance of only Rs 6,000 crore to meet its funds requirements.
