Telangana races ahead in revenue generation

​Hyderabad: Fiscal prudence maintained by Telangana State government in the last four years has placed the newly created T state in the list of the fastest growing states in the country. With sustained financial discipline and a buoyant state economy, Telangana emerged as a leading state in capital formation, welfare measures and revenue generation.

The optimum utilisation of resources in increasing revenues, the timely austerity measures and plugging leakages to curb excess expenditure in every sector coupled with seeking external borrowings fulfilled the targets set by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in every sector including strengthening infrastructure mainly irrigation and implementation of bouquet of community-based welfare schemes every year.

The increased state budget outlay from Rs One lakh crore in 2014 -15 to Rs 1. 74 lakh crore in current year witnessed the substantial increase of the plan expenditure outlay and a fall in non-plan expenditure. In the erstwhile United Andhra Pradesh, more than 60 per cent of the allocations were earmarked under non plan.
In Telangana, plan outlay, now called as scheme expenditure, share has gone up 60 per cent of the total budget.

Despite facing hiccups in tax collections under the GST and Demonitisation affect, Telangana registered exemplary growth in revenue generation. In 2017-18, state government registered 19.42 per cent growth in the revenues generated through sales taxes.

The total revenues generated by the State was Rs 42,074 crore (including GST) as against Rs 35, 231 crore earned in the corresponding year. The constant efforts put by the government in strengthening revenue generating wings mainly tax collections from Excise, Registrations, Transportation and Commercial taxes helped to meet the increasing financial requirements of the State every year.

The long term fiscal discipline maintained by state already attracted national attention as the Centre increased FRBM (Fiscal Responsibility Budget Management) limit every year to get more borrowings from the financial institutions.

The government's decision to creations of Corporations like Kaleshwaram Corporation and Mission Bhagiratha Corporation and HUDCO loans for housing rescued the State from mounting financial burden and helped the execution of infra works and enforcement of slew of welfare schemes without any fund crisis. The RBI already lauded Telangana for increasing expenditure on asset creation from Rs 20,100 crore to Rs 33,100 crore in the last four years.

After Madhya Pradesh, Telangana stood number two in capital formation in 2016-17 in the country. The only worrying factor is the increasing total outstanding debts. Government has predicted the debt burden is likely to touch Rs 1.80 lakh crore in 2018-19 from Rs 1.51 lakh crore last year. It was Rs 1.27 lakh crore in 2016-17 and Rs 93,000 crore in 2015-16. The present debt burden is accounted at 21.39 per cent of the GSDP. Financial experts warned the debt burden crossing 20 per cent of the total GSDP is not good sign for the state finances in the coming years.