Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of landing Haryana in a serious debt trap, the Congress
on Wednesday sought white paper from the government on the financial position of the state.

While addressing a Press conference, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda accompanied by Congress MLAs demanded that the state government should come out with a white paper showing the financial position of the state since the present regime took over.

Hooda said, "At the end of 2014-15, the outstanding debt of the state was Rs 70,931 Crore at 16.21 Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) while the debt volume has further gone up by Rs 16,919 Crore resulting in a total debt of Rs 1,41,854 Crore in Budget Estimates (BE) 2017-18 which is at 22.93 per cent of the GSDP. This shows that the financial health of the state is not good at all."

"The present government issued a white paper in March 2015 in which it was highlighted that over the years there has been a growing reliance on public debt as a major source for financing government expenditure and borrowing was done to repay the old debt. But this government is dependent on debt for government expenditure on the higher side
compared to previous years. Now it should come out white paper on financial health," he added.

Hooda further stated that increases in allowances, etc., which are yet to be revised by the state government, requiring more funds, would will result in further increase of Revenue Deficit and less capital expenditure.

Similarly, due to increase in Revenue Deficit, its impact will be on Fiscal Deficit which is likely to go above the level of 4 per cent.

This all will be hampered for want of funds for capital expenditure, he added.

Haryana's budget for 2017-18 fiscal was presented by Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu on March 6. Total Budget for 2017-18 is pegged at Rs 1.02 lakh Crore with proposing budget of a total 1,02,329.35 Crore for the next fiscal, an increase of 13.18 per cent over RE 2016-17 of Rs 90,412.59 Crore. The outlay comprises 21.88 per cent as capital
expenditure of Rs 22,393.51 Crore and 78.12 per cent as revenue expenditure of Rs 79,935.84 Crore.

The Revenue Deficit for the fiscal 2017-18, it is expected to further down to less than one per cent.