Accusing the BJP-JJP government of making false promises and fiscal mismanagement, the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Monday said the debt of Haryana has been increasing and the state government has been resorting to market borrowings to run day-to-day affairs.
Speaking during the debate on budget proposals, the former chief minister and leader of Opposition said the state is grappling with multiple problems such as falling standards of education at government schools, rising inflation, unemployment, corruption, crime, bad roads, increasing poverty, and depleting forests.
Adding that the state government has pushed Haryana into a debt trap, Hooda said the borrowing rate of the government is higher than the growth rate of the GSDP. “Such is the state of Haryana’s finances that the government has to take loans even to pay off debts. The government depends on borrowings to run routine affairs and the total debt of the state is about ₹3 lakh crore,” he said.
Hooda said around one lakh posts are lying vacant in government departments while there is a huge shortage of teachers at schools and doctors at hospitals. By not recruiting employees, the government has done the work of minimising itself, he said.
“The state is facing multiple problems… unemployment, corruption, agrarian crisis, deteriorating law and order, economic slowdown, declining investment, increasing debt, falling education level... but there are no solutions in sight,” Hooda said.
{{/usCountry}}“The state is facing multiple problems… unemployment, corruption, agrarian crisis, deteriorating law and order, economic slowdown, declining investment, increasing debt, falling education level... but there are no solutions in sight,” Hooda said.
{{/usCountry}}He said the attitude of the government towards education can be gauged from the fact that there are 46 colleges in state which do not have their own building and 127 colleges do not even have a principal.
Hooda raised demand for restoration of the old pension scheme of employees. He said if the Congress government of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh can accept this demand why is Haryana not accepting it?