Chandigarh, March 5 A day before the Punjab Assembly's budget session, opposition parties on Thursday criticized the AAP government over "increasing" debt and demanded a white paper on the state's finances.
The Punjab Assembly's budget session will commence on March 6. The budget will be presented on March 8.
Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said that the state government should issue a white paper in view of the "mounting debt" that has exceeded Rs 4 lakh crore and is projected to reach Rs 4.17 lakh crore by the end of this fiscal.
"The reckless borrowing by the AAP government has brought Punjab to the brink of bankruptcy," he claimed.
"This is quite different from the claims of fiscal prudence and revenue generation made by the AAP leadership. Now, the situation is such that the state government has to take out a loan to pay the interest on existing loans," the Congress leader claimed.
He alleged that while all previous governments in the last three decades had borrowed, the current dispensation had borrowed with "uncontrolled greed without caring for the state's future".
While previous governments accumulated a debt of Rs 3 lakh crore in 30 years, the AAP added over Rs 1 lakh crore to the state's debt in just four years, and mostly for unproductive purposes, Warring alleged.
He pointed out that there has not been a single infrastructure development project launched in the last four years.
Noting that despite the state's "precarious" financial situation, he said, the AAP is spending money on "non-productive extravagance like advertisements, billboards, and banners, and painting government assets".
Shiromani Akali Dal leader and former cabinet minister Bikram Singh Majithia also targeted the Aam Aadmi Party government over the issue.
In a statement, Majithia said that different governments formed in Punjab since Independence had taken a total loan of Rs 2,81,773 crore till the financial year 2021-22.
With this borrowing, governments from time to time created the basic infrastructure of the state, he said, and claimed that between 2007 and 2017, the basic infrastructure of Punjab was established under the leadership of then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, which the people of the state still remember.
However, by March 2026, this debt is going to increase to around Rs 4,17,136 crore because the Bhagwant Mann government has taken nearly Rs 1,35,363 crore in just four years, Majithia said.
BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh alleged that the Bhagwant Mann government is continuously pushing Punjab towards a serious financial crisis by taking loan after loan.
Over the past few years, Punjab's debt has rapidly increased to more than Rs 4 lakh crore, he pointed out, and claimed that the government is once again preparing to take a substantial loan, which will further weaken the state's financial condition.
"Despite taking such massive loans, there is no visible development on the ground in Punjab. No major dam has been constructed, no major bridge has been built, no new industrial units have been established, and no meaningful transformation has taken place in the agricultural sector," Chugh added.
