Peerzada Ummer
Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 13: The failure of erstwhile regimes in Jammu and Kashmir to recover the outstanding loan amounts from various corporations has put the J&K’s economy in deep trouble with more than Rs 1100 crore still being unrecovered.
Documents in possession of the Early Times newspaper reveal that despite poor performance of recovery, the then State Government had disbursed a new loan of Rs 37.98 crore and Rs 30 crore respectively in favour of J&K State Road Transport Corporation and Agro Industries but nothing was recovered from these entities during 2018-19.
Loan amounting to Rs 45.93 crore and Rs 376.72 crore were outstanding against Agro Industries and J&K State Road Transport Corporation which had an accumulated losses of Rs 42.10 crore and Rs 1,148.12 crore as per their latest finalized accounts. Thus, loans were sanctioned by the State Government without ensuring its recovery. An amount of Rs 25,332 crore was received as internal debt which includes Market Loans of Rs 6,684 crore and loans of Rs 402 crore from financial institutions and banks during 2018-19 which was Rs 194 crore less than internal debt receipt of Rs 25,526 crore of the previous year.
Documents reveal further that the Public Accounts Receipts increased from Rs 30,697 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 39,107 crore in 2018-19, disbursements decreased from Rs 30,861 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 30,502 crore in 2018-19 mainly because of less disbursement under remittances as compared to the previous year. Excess of disbursement over receipts was Rs 164 crore in 2017-18 converted into surplus of receipt over disbursement amounting to Rs 8,605 crore in 2018-19 because of increase in receipt under small savings ( on account of transfer of arrears related to 7th pay commission into GPF).
The Revenue Expenditure increased by Rs 15,174 crore (37.08 per cent) from Rs 40,916 crore to Rs 56,090 crore over the previous year. The increase in Revenue Expenditure under General Services was Rs 5,962 crore from Rs 16,888 crore to Rs 22,850 crore, Social Services expenditure of Rs 4,814 crore from Rs 13,117 crore to Rs 17,931 crore was mainly under Education, Sports, Art and Culture, Health and Family Welfare, Water Supply, Sanitation, Pension & Misc. General Services and Economic Services expenditure increased by Rs 4,398 crore mainly under Energy sector. The Revenue Expenditure in 2018-19 at Rs 56,090 crore was more than the projections made by the 14th FC (Rs 40,506 crore) mainly due to increase in salaries and pension payments on implementation of Seventh Pay Commission.
The combined share of Social and Economic Services which represented Development Expenditure was ranging between 63 per cent to 67 per cent during 2014-15 to 2018-19. The relative shares of various components of expenditure indicated that the share of General Services was 37 per cent in 2018-19 as compared to 35 per cent in previous year, while the Social Services was 32 per cent during 2018-19 as compared to 31 per cent during the previous year. Economic services decreased from 34 to 31 per cent in 2018-19. The combined share of Social and Economic Services decreased from 65 per cent to 63 per cent over the previous year due to decrease in Development Revenue Expenditure in Economic Services. |
