Tamil Nadu Finance Minister releases white paper on state finances

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiyagarajan has said the state has a debt of 5.7 lakh crore rupees. He released a white paper on the state finances in Chennai yesterday.

Talking to reporters, the Minister said, huge revenue deficits and wrong policies in the state agencies like power generation and distribution firms have led to the huge debt burden. 

"The position of the state finances has become the bone of contention between the ruling DMK that recently came to power and the opposition AIADMK that was ruling for over ten years. State finance minister Palanivel Thiyagarajan said a major course correction is required to put the state finances back on a



growth trajectory. 

He said the interest payments for the visible debt of the government and the public sector undertakings is about 295 crore rupees every day. He said the central government grant of about 2577 crore rupees for the local bodies were lost due to failure to hold the elections in time. 

The state run transport corporations suffer a loss of 15 crore rupees and the electricity board 55 crore rupees a day. However, the opposition leader and former chief minister Edappadi Palaniswamy said the rise in public debt was mainly due to the freeze in the transport and power tariffs, keeping in mind the welfare of the poor.