Telangana govt. intensifies efforts to finalise budget for next financial year

Officials hint that outlay could be slightly higher than the current fiscal 

The Finance department has intensified its efforts to finalise the budget proposals for the next financial year as the current fiscal year is coming to a close in little over two months.

The ruling government is planning to go for a full-fledged budget next fiscal too even though the term of the current Assembly is ending in the middle of January next year. The first session of the Assembly was convened on January 17, 2019, after the TRS won with a landslide majority in the December elections. This would mean that the current government will have three full quarters to meet the commitments it makes to people and the budget preparation exercise is underway accordingly, senior officials said.

The outlay for the next fiscal is likely to be slightly higher than the current fiscal’s ₹ 2.53 lakh crore as per the current thinking but officials refused to divulge the approximate figure. “The outlay next fiscal will be slightly higher in the current thinking. But no discussion has been held with Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on the issue so far,” a senior official told The Hindu.

The government is awaiting the Union budget likely to be presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman in the Parliament on February 1. State Finance Minister T. Harish Rao has submitted a list of requests from Telangana for inclusion in the Union budget. These included: release of pending dues under backward regions grant fund and extension of the provision by five more years, offer of fiscal measures including tax incentives to the State in accordance with the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, national project status for Kaleshwaram project and liberal financial assistance in extending metro rail services between Lakdi-ka-pul and BHEL.

Meanwhile, adequate care is being taken to present a realistic budget as the government faced tough time during the current fiscal to mobilise financial resources after the Union Finance Ministry had imposed steep cuts in the public debt component. The government had been allowed to raise ₹ 37,650 crore open market borrowings as against the ₹ 52,167 crore projected in the budget leaving a huge gap of ₹ 15,000 crore.

This left the government in a piquant situation in fulfilling its commitments like implementation of revised pay scales to all categories of employees and flagship schemes like Rythu Bandhu and Dalit Bandhu. Dalit Bandhu, for instance, received budgetary allocation of ₹ 17,700 crore for the current year, but the actual releases to the beneficiaries are far from reaching the half-way mark at the end of the third quarter.