Kolkata, Mar 27 (IANS): Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, on Wednesday accused the state government of doing jugglery with the gross domestic state product (GSDP) figures to go for additional borrowings from the market, which in turn is pushing the state towards a debt trap.

Adhikari also claimed that the Bengal government’s 'blatant jugglery' with the GSDP figures has now been revealed in the central figures on state-wise GSDP released recently by the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The biggest jugglery was done by the state government before the interim state budget for the financial year 2021-23, when it claimed to have achieved a growth of 1.20 per cent, and that too at a time when the national figures turned negative because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns, Adhikari claimed.

The BJP leader added that as per the figures of the recently released central data, West Bengal’s economic growth was negative by 7.58 percentage points during that period.

According to Adhikari, doing jugglery with the GSDP figures is nothing new for the state government.

In the state budget for the financial year 2019-20, the economic growth of the state was put at 10.42 per cent.

“However, the actual figure was 3.10 per cent, as revealed in the central data. What does this mean? This means the state government is fast moving towards a debt trap because it tends to go for higher borrowings by projecting bloated GSDP figures,” he claimed.

Debt trap is an economic situation wherein a state government goes for fresh borrowings just to service past debts.