GO issued for 86% of DMK’s announcements, says PTR

CHENNAI: State Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan on Tuesday informed the State Assembly that the government has issued GOs for about 86% of the announcements made during the DMK regime, against the 27% in the previous AIADMK regime.

Replying to the Budget debate in the State Assembly, Thiaga Rajan said that during the previous ten-year AIADMK regime, about 1,704 announcements were made under rule 110 of the State Assembly to the tune of Rs 3.27 lakh crore, but only 27% of it worth Rs 87,405 crore was implemented during their tenure. Pointing out that about 3,537 announcements, including 67 made under rule 110 and about 338 Budget announcements were made during the last two years of the DMK regime, the Finance Minister said that of the 3,537 announcements, GOs have been issued for 3,038 (86%) of the announcements already.

Of the 63 announcements made by Chief Minister M K Stalin under Rule 110 in the House, GOs have been issued for all and 39 announcements have been implemented, while another 24 are under progress, he informed.

TN's financial numbers much better than GoI despite constraints

Arguing that the revenue and fiscal deficit of Tamil Nadu was much better than the Union government despite constraints in borrowing/accounting, he said that it was the duty and target of the incumbent government to implement new schemes without imposing debt burden on future generations.

Comparing the revenue and fiscal deficit of TN with the Centre in the three financial years from 2020-21, PTR pointed out that the revenue and fiscal deficit of GoI in 2022-23 fiscal was 4.1% and 5.9% (revised), respectively, against the 1.23% and 3% of Tamil Nadu. "Whenever the GoI amends its FRBM Act, no one can question it. But when we attempt to amend equivalent laws here, the subsequent correspondence from GoI insists that we must account for every last crore only based on their rules and not in accordance with our (state's) amendments. Nonetheless, our deficit is only half of theirs," he argued.