AP is wasting money, says Centre and caps borrowing

Hyderabad, Oct 8: In a significant development, the central government has said the Andhra Pradesh government was making wasteful expenditure and it went on to put a cap on the state's borrowing at Rs 2,000 crore for the third quarter this fiscal. Earlier, the AP government is said to have sought permission from the central government to borrow at least Rs 4,000 crore. In response, the central government allowed the state to borrow up to Rs 3,500 crore in the first two quarters of this fiscal. But with the state government spending crores of rupees on non-productive work, the officials of the Union finance ministry had informed their counterparts in AP of capping the borrowing limit. Consequently, AP will be borrowing Rs 1,500 crore on October 11. As against a cap of Rs 17,851 crore, the AP government has so far borrowed Rs 7,000 crore, including loans from NABARD and other external agencies.