West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta today stressed that West Bengal is not the only state with a huge debt burden and other states, as well as the Centre, have also taken massive loans.
While West Bengal's debt burden stands at about Rs 1.92 lakh crore, Uttar Pradesh has a loan burden of Rs 2.21 lakh crore and Maharastra Rs 2.08 lakh crore, while the central government has a debt burden of Rs 38 lakh crore, Dasgupta told the West Bengal Assembly today.
Dasgupta made the statement after RSP member Tapan Hore pointed out that Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee had yesterday said that West Bengal has a loan burden of Rs 1.92 lakh crore.
States like Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh also have substantial debt of 1.21 lakh crore and 1.28 lakh crore, respectively, he said. The minister, speaking on the West Bengal Appropriation (No2) Bill, 2010, which was passed in the House, said the debt per capita in the state was Rs 22,000, while for the country as a whole under the Centre's stewardship, it was Rs 33,000. On banking services, he regretted the fact that nationalised banks had only disbursed loans worth Rs 8,300 crore in the state, whereas in the case of Andhra Pradesh, they had lent Rs 41,913 crore. He said the banking system should be universalised and remote areas which do not have any bank branches should be covered under the business correspondent model.