Why does Centre remain silent about its own debt, questions Mamata

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday accused the Union government of being silent about its own debt while highlighting the state’s own accumulated debt.

"We have incurred huge debt from the previous Left Front regime. Besides servicing those past debts, the state government is running so many social welfare schemes. But we have managed the debt situation better than the previous regime.

"The Union government always says that the state’s own debt is increasing. But they are always silent on their own debt," she told media persons.

Banerjee then fielded Chief Secretary H.K. Dwivedi to explain how the current regime in West Bengal has managed the debt situation better than the previous Left Front regime and how the debt of the Union government’s own debt burden has increased over years.

Dwivedi said that the total accumulated debt of the Union government in 2014-15 was Rs 62.42 lakh crore, which increased to Rs 152.60 lakh crore currently. According to him, in 2011, the year Trinamool Congress regime came to power ousting the 34- year Left Front regime, the debt to gross state domestic product (GSDP) was 40 per cent, which has currently come down to 33 per cent.

After Dwivedi completed, the Chief Minister took the microphone again and said that the state's current accumulated debt of around Rs 5,00,000 crore is nothing compared to the Union government’s total accumulated debt figure of Rs 152 lakh crore.

"But they never speak of their own. They only highlight our debt," she said.

She also claimed that in case of the newly-formed states like Telangana, the problem of inheriting past debts is not there. "But in West Bengal, we have inherited huge past debts," she said.