The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report for 2021-22, which was tabled in the Kerala Assembly on Thursday yet again slammed the state government for its off-budget borrowing through the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB).

The CAG report says that the off-budget borrowings of the kind availed by the KIIFB are adding to the debt burden of the Kerala government.

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Apart from borrowings facilitated by the KIIFB and the Kerala Social Security Pension Ltd (KSSPL), the CAG also criticised the borrowings through a bill discounting system.

The report says the borrowings by the KIIFB has increased the debt burden of Kerala. The CAG report rejected the state government’s claim that the KIIFB borrowings are not a liability of the state. The liability of Rs 11,206.49 crore of the pension company is also the additional burden of the state government, the report states.

The report further says that the Kerala government had resorted to short-term borrowings for settling pending bills of contractors through the bill discounting system. The promissory notes issued during the year (2021-22), amounting to Rs 1,601.72 crore, remained unsettled but the accounts did not reflect this.

According to the report, the off-budget borrowings have increased the state’s overall liabilities from Rs 57,392.76 crore to Rs 3,83,267.15 crore as on March 31, 2022. During 2021-22, the KIIFB raised off-budget loans amounting to Rs 7,762.78 crore, while the KSSPL raised Rs 6,550 crore.

There is criticism in the report that 19.98 per cent of the revenue income of the state is used to pay interest. The CAG report further claims that a loss of Rs 29 crore resulted from the waiver of rent for two clubs in the capital.

The CAG found fault with Kerala’s off-budget borrowings in its report for the year ending in March 2021.