Madurai: Finance minister PTR Palanivel Thiaga Rajan has criticised former AIADMK ministers, especially R B Udhayakumar, for making "irresponsible statements" in the media. He asked Udhayakumar how the revenue collected this year will account for fiscal deficit of the previous year. He was referring to the latter's statement on revenue from increased power tariff and property tax helping the government fix fiscal deficit.

The additional revenue from the hiked power tariff will go to the board while the property tax revenue will go to local bodies. How would they contribute to the fiscal deficit of the state government? What had he learned as minister? Thiaga Rajan asked. In his statement, Udhayakumar had stated that DMK stopped schemes like laptop, two-wheelers and thalikku thangam (marriage assistance for young women). PTR claimed that it was the AIADMK government which stopped their own schemes because of fund crunch. "There is a huge back-log of beneficiaries under Thalikku Thangam which has been changed into an education assistance programme. They have stopped the two-wheeler scheme and laptop scheme without funds. It is so wrong to project their failures as ours," he said.

One of the important rules of financial prudence is that loan should be invested. The financial management rule says that loans should be in a certain proportion to GDP. The central government fixes the boundary for borrowing and the present government is very much within this boundary. AIADMK has violated that boundary and borrowed Rs 30,000 crore in addition and the central government turned a blind eye to it. CAG report mentions this violation. "But, daddy did not take any action on this violation," he indicated to the Centre and the PM. In spite of borrowing they stopped the schemes and increased the fiscal deficit to 4.61%. As long as Jayalalithaa lived there was some discipline and the deficit remained in control. After her demise, the deficit was on a free fall which is the reason that I mentioned that their rule should not continue, Thiaga Rajan said.

The present government managed to bring down deficit from 4.61% to 3.35%. The deficit of Rs 62,000 crore brought down to 46,000 to 47,000 crore rupees. The public distribution has been doubled from Rs 6,000 crore to Rs 12,000 crore to keep inflation in check. Udhay- kumar would know if he had studied financial manage- ment, he charged.

Earlier, PTR distributed welfare measures to disabled people at MC higher secondary school near Periyar bus terminal. He also inaugurated new paver block roads at Krishnan-koil Street in ward 51, Vasanth Nagar II street in ward 75 and Ganesapuram street in ward 22. Su Venkatesan, MP, collector Dr Aneesh Sekhar, corporation commissioner Simranjeet Singh Kahlon, mayor V Indirani Ponvasanth were present.

Media: Times of India