Chennai: DMK and AIADMK members engaged in a heated debate in the state assembly on Tuesday on the rising debt, with the main opposition party criticising govt’s “handling of the economy and its one trillion economy target”.
The AIADMK cited “lack of new schemes” while govt countered it, pointing to expenses incurred from previous AIADMK govt’s initiatives such as ‘gold for marriage’ scheme.
During a debate on the budget, AIADMK MLA (Gudalur) Pon Jayaseelan criticised the current dispensation’s projected borrowings and reported a debt burden of 3.7 lakh per individual in the state.
He said AIADMK regime, despite back-to-back natural disasters, implemented welfare schemes during its tenure, including free laptop and gold for marriage schemes, crop loan waivers, establishment of medical colleges and new buses, and providing salaries to govt staff during Covid-19 pandemic.
“Still, the outstanding debt of AIADMK regime stood at 3.68 lakh crore. Now govt has fixed a target for borrowings at 5 lakh crore,” he said, urging govt to “wake up” and save people.
The laptop scheme became a point of contention with Jayaseelan alleging that DMK stalled the scheme after AIADMK successfully implemented it, benefiting 52 lakh students at a cost of 7,257 crore.
Law minister Regupathy countered this claim, saying it was AIADMK that halted the scheme. He added that AIADMK govt only identified beneficiaries for the ‘gold for marriage’ scheme for three fiscal years, 2018-21, without distributing the benefit.
“It was our chief minister who bore the burden and handed over gold to beneficiaries. We met your expenses,” Regupathy said, citing his presence at an event to distribute gold for marriage.
Deputy leader of the opposition R B Udayakumar attributed the laptop scheme delay to production issues and said a hold on the ‘gold for marriage’ tender was due to problems in gold mines during Covid-19 pandemic.
“The govt could spell out the reasons for not distributing laptops for four years. How is it fair to say we stalled it?” he said.