In just first 3 quarters, Punjab has borrowed Rs 30,000 crore

“Things are going to be worse. The government will be facing acute shortage of funds in the coming days. The major bleed of exchequer will be caused by the power subsidy under which the government is giving 300 units of power free of cost to the residents. Till date, the power utility had a saving of Rs 4,000 crore in its coffers but the money has been spent now on the subsidy in six months. The free 300 units were implemented from July 1. Once the power utility is finished with its savings, the government would have to pay from the consolidated fund,” said a functionary of the government.

He added that the power subsidy bill of the state government was Rs 54 crore everyday and Rs 1500 crore every month. “You can well imagine how much money we are going to need in the coming months.”

The government is hardly able to pay the salaries to its employees. With the GST regime coming to an end, the state has lost its annual compensation of Rs 16,000 crore. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government that had earlier stated that it would be able to make Rs 20,000 crore from sand mining alone, has not been able to streamline the sand mining business yet and is grappling with high prices of sand.

During the last fiscals, the previous government had borrowed Rs 42,386 crore in 2020-21, and Rs 41,083 crore in 2021-22. In the Budget estimates this year, the AAP government had estimated that Rs 36,068 crore would be spent on debt servicing in the current fiscal. Out of this, Rs 20,122 crore would go for interest payments alone. The rest, Rs 15,946 crore would go towards repayment of debt excluding ways and means advances. For ways and means advances, the state would pay Rs 20,000 crore separately which was to be spent under the capital expenditure head.