Kolkata, July 27 (SocialNews.XYZ) One of the 28 reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India tabled in the West Bengal Assembly by Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta during the extended budget session has revealed a grim picture of the state’s fiscal and revenue deficits during the Mamata Banerjee-led regime.
The state leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including the state party president and the Rajya Sabha member, Samik Bhattacharya, has alleged that the previous Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government deliberately refrained from making these CAG reports public to hide the pathetic state of the economy in West Bengal from the people.
The state finance audit report by the CAG for the financial year of 2024-25 had shown that the revenue deficit in the state stood at Rs 39,727 crore during that fiscal under review, which was 2.19 per cent of the GSDP (gross state domestic product).
At the same time, as per the report, the fiscal deficit during the same fiscal year was Rs 61,924 crore or 3.41 per cent of the GSDP. In fact, as per the CAG report, West Bengal had a revenue deficit in every financial year starting from 2015-16 to 2024-25, the latest available.
In total, revenue expenditure during that period was Rs 2,53,427 crore, which is 118.59 per cent of the total revenue receipts. In fact, during the last five financial years, the major part of this expenditure went to sectors like payments of salaries, pensions and interest on loans.
With the addition of subsidies of Rs 19,444 crore for various projects, about 74 per cent of the total revenue income was spent on these sectors. As a result, the government could not spend as much on infrastructure or capital expenditure.
The particular CAG report has also highlighted several irregularities in the utilisation of the budgetary allocations during the fiscal under review. According to it, although Rs 3,90,638.04 crore was allocated, only Rs 3,19,975.79 crore was spent.
As a result, as per the CAG report, Rs 70,662.25 crore or 18.09 per cent of the funds remained unutilised. Apart from that, an additional expenditure of Rs 13,486.92 crore was still awaiting approval.
“There were two purposes with which these 28 CAG reports were tabled in the Assembly last week. First was to reveal the nature of corruption during the 15-year Trinamool Congress regime in the state from 2011 to 2026 and the second was to highlight the utter financial mismanagement during that period. That is exactly why the previous regime refrained from tabling the CAG report on the floor of the House for a long time and making it public,” said a member of the state cabinet who refused to be named.
As already reported on Sunday, the projected loss in the aftermath of AMPHAN super-cyclone (2020) was presented in an inflated manner by the previous Trinamool Congress government for getting higher Central relief financial assistance, which was highlighted in one of the 28 CAG reports that were tabled in the House on Saturday by the state finance minister.
Source: IANS
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