State has been pushed into a debt trap under Cong govt: Dhumal

Former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal today claimed that the state has been pushed into a debt trap due to "improper" financial management and the situation was so "dismal that the government had been forced raise new loans to repay the old ones".
"The Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh-led government has failed on all fronts and has been the most corrupt and incompetent the state has ever seen," he alleged at a press conference at Dosarka here.
Singh has raised an army of 45 chairmen and vice chairmen, putting huge financial burden on the fund starved state, and a large number of defeated Congress MLAS were enjoying at the government's expense, Dhumal alleged.

The BJP leader claimed development had come to a halt despite Rs 40,625 crore being sanctioned under the 14th Finance Commission in comparison to Rs 20,500 crore sanctioned by the 13th Finance Commission to the state.
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi restored the 'special category hill state' status to Himachal Pradesh which implies that all centrally-sponsored projects would be funded in a 90:10 ratio between the centre and the state.
It is painful that in spite of liberal funding by the centre the government was "begging for loans", the ex-chief minister claimed.
Terming Singh a "Ghoshna Mukhya Mantri" (chief minister of announcements), he alleged that the CM was making false announcements involving expenditure of crores of rupees and indiscriminately laying the foundation stones of new projects without ant budgetary provision.

Claiming that the Chief Minister was aware that Congress would defeated in the coming Assembly polls, Dhumal said he was making "ridiculous" statements repeatedly to divert the attention from the government's failures.