The expenditure on salary, pension, interest payment on borrowings and power subsidy will consume whopping 87 per cent of Punjab's revenue, which means "meager" resources will be left with the state government for spending on development expenditure.
Punjab has proposed to generate revenue receipts of Rs 50,180 crore in next fiscal while Rs 43,739 crore are expected to be spent on salary, pension, interest and power subsidy, as per budget documents.
Punjab Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa today presented state budget for 2016-17 here at Vidhan Sabha.
As part of non-plan revenue expenditure, the budget has estimated interest payment, salary & wages, pension and power subsidy at Rs 10,787 crore, 19,585 crore, 7,767 crore and 5,600 crore respectively for next fiscal, as per documents.
Pegging the total size of the budget at Rs 86,387 crore (effective size Rs 66,887 crore after excluding ways and means of Rs 19,500 crore), the FM projected revenue deficit of Rs 7,982.83 crore and fiscal deficit at Rs 13,087.23 crore in 2016-17.
State's revenue receipts comprise own tax and non-tax revenue, share of central taxes and grant in aid from centre.
Punjab government has also projected to raise market loans of Rs 14,415 crore while its outstanding debt is pegged at Rs 1.38 lakh crore for 2016-17.
Already facing wrath over "heavy" debt from opposition parties, Punjab government was rapped by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for utilizing major portion of borrowings for servicing old debt and revenue expenditure.
In its latest report on state finances, CAG pointed out that major portion of borrowings
was utilised for repayment of earlier borrowings (47 to 70 per cent) and revenue expenditure (20 to 39 per cent).
Only 8 to 19 per cent of the borrowings were utilized for capital expenditure during 2010-15, report said.
