Chennai: The state’s spending on infrastructure development and allocation of funds for education almost matches the payment of interest, going by the budget estimates for the year 2016-17.
While the spending on infrastructure and education stands at Rs 21,376 crore, the annual debt paid by the government comes to Rs 21,304 crore. During the financial year 2015-16, the debts were Rs 18,350 crore and the capital expenditure was Rs 20,765 crore. There was a small difference of around Rs 2,000 crore between the spending on infrastructure and interests paid during last year. But, the gap between them is narrow as per the estimates for this year, as the amount of debts had gone up.
The entire amount spend on construction and maintenance of roads and bridges is Rs 7,064 crore, while the amount of water supply is Rs 1,597 crore. The entire amount spent on irrigation is Rs 1,657 crore. The funds allocated for education is Rs 1,035 crore, while agriculture gets Rs 1,148 crore. The total amount allocated for health department is Rs 9,073 crore.
The total amount spent on water supply, irrigation, education and agriculture nearly matches that of the freebies which comes to Rs 5,474 crore every year.
The salaries for government staff had gone up from Rs 41,445 crore last year to Rs 45,542 crore this year. Besides, the amount on pensions and retirement benefits had increased from Rs 17,544 crore to Rs 18,869 crore.
