Chennai: DMK leader and former Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu on Tuesday accused the state government of deliberately stalling development works and withholding contractor payments to falsely project a reduced debt burden as a financial achievement.
Responding to reports that the state's borrowing through government bonds fell by 21 per cent in the first half of the current fiscal year compared to the corresponding period last year, he questioned the administration's silence on underlying economic realities.
The TVK government is trying to present lower borrowing as a massive achievement, Thennarasu stated, asking how the administration can justify the decrease without disclosing full details of capital expenditure and developmental works undertaken during the period.
Drawing a contrast with the previous DMK regime's performance, he highlighted allocation figures from the 2025-26 budget, noting that ₹57,231 crore had been allocated for capital expenditures and that provisional accounts from the Comptroller and Auditor General showed ₹13,002.22 crore was spent effectively between April and September 2025 on key infrastructure projects like the Metro Rail.
Posing a series of questions to the current leadership, Thennarasu demanded to know the exact capital expenditure incurred from April to September, the amount actually spent on new infrastructure initiatives, and the total outstanding amount the government has failed to disburse for ongoing projects initiated during the DMK tenure.
He argued that withholding payments for completed projects and artificially inflating cash reserves to borrow less cannot be classified as genuine savings or sound financial management.
Thennarasu also pointed out a contradiction in the government's fiscal roadmap, revealing that despite boasting of reduced borrowing in the first half, the administration has planned a borrowing spree of ₹48,000 crore for the October-December quarter alone, which is more than double the ₹23,500 crore raised in the preceding quarter.