Bishnoi, N.K. (National Institute of Public Finance and Policy)
Abstract
The state of Haryana, an old success story of the green revolution in the country, continues to be a relatively high per capita income state. The fiscal position of Haryana has also been sound. But after the onset of the policy of liberalisation by the Government of India (GoI) in 1991-92, the economic performance of the state has slowed down in comparison to the national growth rate. The fiscal indicators also started showing signs of deterioration. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to understand the factors leading to the worsening situation of the state finances. Investigations reveal that the revenue receipts of the state could not keep pace with expenditure requirements and therefore, led to the decline of its fiscal health. The problem was aggravated by the imposition of prohibition policy in mid `90s. The Fifth Pay Commission affected the expenditure side of the budget substantially and the state was in trouble by the late 90s. However, the government took corrective measure and the situation was brought under control. Detailed analyses suggest that social sector performance has been deteriorating and the government has not been able to do anything worthwhile to reverse it. Neither enhancement in public expenditure nor change in policy regime to attract non-government players is visible. In fact, Haryana would have done far better had it acted proactively and modified its policies to take advantage of the changed ground realities after 1991-92. Haryana also missed some opportunities to mobilise funds from unconventional sources at competitive rates. The most obvious deficiency in the economic management of the state is that it has not been able develop growth centre(s) organically connected to its hinterland. This has resulted in a highly unbalanced regional development of the state. Consequently, only these areas of Haryana which are adjoining Delhi, are the growing regions, having very poor linkage with most part of the state. These deficiencies need corrective steps by the Government of Haryana (GoH).
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in its series Working Papers with number
34.