Hyderabad: Telangana borrowed 37% more than its permissible loan limit over five financial years, according to data tabled in the Lok Sabha on Monday by the Union Finance Ministry.
Responding to a question from Khammam MP Ramasahayam Raghurama Reddy, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said the Centre had capped state borrowings at 3–4% of their Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) annually between 2020–21 and 2024–25. Telangana was authorised to raise ₹2.07 lakh crore from the open market during this period.
However, the state raised ₹2,35,447 crore through market loans = exceeding the authorised limit by ₹27,600 crore or 13.29%. In addition, it secured ₹50,098 crore through extra-budgetary borrowings, pushing total debt to ₹2.85 lakh crore.
A bulk of the off-budget loans = ₹35,258 crore = were raised in 2021–22 alone, accounting for 70.37% of the total extra-budgetary borrowing across the five-year span. Remaining amounts were spread across 2022–23 (₹9,597 crore), 2023–24 (₹2,546 crore), and 2024–25 (₹2,697 crore). No off-budget borrowing was recorded in 2020–21.
Across these years, net borrowings stood at ₹30,102 crore in 2020–21, ₹43,138 crore in 2021–22, ₹42,728 crore in 2022–23, ₹43,000 crore in 2023–24, and ₹48,879 crore in 2024–25. The average borrowing was within the permitted GSDP ratio of 3.3%, but actual mobilisation exceeded the threshold once extra-budgetary channels were included.
