Congress faults NR for cash crunch

PUDUCHERRY: Leader of Opposition V Vaithilingam, on Thursday, held chief minister N Rangasamy responsible for the lack of finance to support the budgetary expenditure  and refuted the charge that it was due to overburdening loan by his government. Replying to charges made by Rangasamy against him during the anniversary celebration of his AINRC party, Vaithilingam said that it was Rangasamy who  raised the loan burden to `3200 crore in 2008 when he quit office, pointing out  that it was the CM who had opened  a separate Public Account  in RBI  for obtaining loans.   However, despite the loan , Rangasamy had always failed to utilise the full plan size for development.  He said in the current year,   Rangasamy could not raise the  `975 crore loan component in the plan expenditure  as he had not been able to enhance the  UT’s own  revenue  to the extent as presented in the budget.  CM Rangasamy had presented a  budget to achieve a growth rate of 14 per cent  of gross state  domestic product of `14,862 crore, but failed to do so.