AP, Telangana Budget sessions to begin tomorrow

On March 7th (Saturday), the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State legislative assemblies Budget sessions will commence with the customary address by the Governor, ESL Narasimhan.

As both the sessions are to be held at the same location, the AP session will begin at 9 AM with the address of the Governor. Subsequently, both the Houses of the new state of Telangana would be addressed by the Governor at 11 am.

Both states would be presenting their first full budgets. Both the states had very less flexibility in the way they could outline their plans in the budget for 2014-15 but the budget for 2015-16 would provide the opportunity to outline their plans for this financial year and provide broad contours, strategy over the next four years.

With devolution amount going up from 32 per cent to 42 per cent and the Fourteenth Finance Commission recommendations providing more funds into the States hands, greater flexibility is possible in terms of handling various schemes.

Nevertheless, Andhra Pradesh is disappointed over no provision of Special Status and allocation for the Capital development or the Polavaram Irrigation project. The budget process would be a difficult task for the AP Government given the backdrop of tough financial position, with the deficit crossing Rs. 20,000 mark so far this year.