Chennai: DMK chief M. Karunanidhi on Wednesday said finance minister O. Panneerselvam’s reply to the budget discussion did not have the answers for the queries raised on fiscal deficit and debt burden of the state government.

The reply had repeated the allocation for various departments announced earlier that too with discrepancies. Since, he had nothing much to reply, he had repeated the allocations and spent more time on praising Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, he said.

The minister had simply said the fiscal deficit had gone up since the revenue had not been increased, the DMK leader said the AIADMK government’s finance management is defective as it had failed to increase revenue and control the expenditure.

Though, the minister had said the fiscal deficit is within the permissible levels of 2.96, but the projected deficit would exceed the permitted limit of 3 per cent and go up to 3.34 per cent after the implementation of the seventh pay commission.
Citing the minister’s statement that the fiscal deficit of Tamil Nadu is less than Maharashtra, Karunanidhi said according to RBI statistics the deficit of Tamil Nadu is higher than Uttar Pradesh.

Referring to Panneerselvam’s explanation that Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are getting more funds from the centre, resulting in higher revenue and lesser fiscal deficit for them, the DMK leader asked how both the states having anti-BJP governments are able to get more funds than Tamil Nadu which is friendly with the Centre.