With debt servicing, salary and pensions and power subsidy remaining a major drain on state exchequer, for the next fiscal, Punjab government missed the target of revenue receipts in the current fiscal.
With not much of emphasis to mop up resources, especially in the election year, the state has ended decreasing the target of various receipts.
With a debt of Rs 2.29 lakh crore, the state would end up paying Rs 30309 crore on debt servicing in the next fiscal. The salary and pensions component would be a major drain with a fat bill of Rs 26,978 crore and Rs 10,875 crore, respectively. Similarly, it would have to shell out Rs 12,397 crore as power subsidy to farmers as well as industrialists. The amount also has an unpaid power subsidy bill of Rs 3,000 crore that the government was not able to pay due to fund crunch.