White paper will have nothing new: Virbhadra

Virbhadra Singh claims that the Congress government’s decision to resort to marketing borrowing was best of the options available at that time. "Now, Dhumal government has also been compelled to follow suit," former CM told ENS. His obvious reference was to state government’s move to go public for raising loans worth Rs 30 crore through SLR bonds.

Blaming the Centre for not bailing-out the state despite its pending claims worth Rs 1,500 crore, former CM said that the entire government would have come to a standstill had he not taken a decision to raise resources by opting for marketing borrowing. "Total loans raised during past four years through HPSEB and State Forest Corporation were around Rs 900 crore and were for development activities," he claims. Even now the options available to new government were limited i.e. either "shut-down" the shops or raise loans till Centre comes to its rescue.

He denies that debt liability of the state had touched Rs 6,500 crore. The estimated debt liability as on January 31, 1998 was Rs 2,850 crore. In 1997-98 budget, which he had presented in the assembly, the debt-liability stood at Rs 1,742.25 crore.

The former CM claims that the debt-liability had been mounting since 1991-92. The position worsened as the ninth finance commission overestimated state’s revenue and under-estimated the expenditure. Shanta Kumar government became its first victim. "When I took over in 1993, I also inherited bad finances," he added. Though 10th finance commission tried to help the state, a gap left over by the ninth finance commission remained unfilled.

Virbhadra maintains that a major part of the loans raised during his regime were from small savings, block loans and others coming from NABARD and similar institutions. He also contests the observations of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India that his government had committed constitutional improprieties and raised loans without obtaining Centre’s concurrence.

The leader of opposition says he was with the BJP government to get a package of Rs 1,000 crore from the Centre. "This is the legitimate right of the state since we have claims under state’s Reorganisation Act 1966 pending against the neighbouring states and it is the duty of the Centre to enforce the Act for doing justice to Himachal."

Virbhadra Singh also justifies decision of his government to file a suit in the Supreme Court against defaulter state governments. He says this, however, does not debar Centre from bringing an amicable out of court settlement.

Virbhadra claims that all figures of state’s financial position are on his tips and white-paper would reveal nothing sensational or new what he did not know.

In fact Dhumal, who also holds finance portfolio had retained the Finance Secretary, a confidant of Virbhadra Singh.