 | « Back to article | Print this article |
The Budget books refer to this Rs 300 crore as "amount due from Pakistan on account of share of pre-partition debt."
The amount was entered as a liability in the first Budget of independent India in 1950-51 and has been there ever since.
But this a measly amount compared to the union government's total liabilities that total Rs 34,95,452 crore (Rs 34.95 trillion) and accounts for just 0.008 per cent of the total liabilities.
However, in 1950-51 this amount accounted for more than 10 per cent of India's total liabilities of Rs 2,865.40 crore (Rs 28.65 billion) and nearly 10 times of India's total external debt of Rs 32 crore (Rs 320 million).
Surprisingly, New Delhi has not added interest to this amount since its entry in the books. However, India has cleared its share of the pre-partition debt of Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) soon after independence in 1947.