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Budget blues for AP
The Andhra Pradesh government is struggling to give finishing touches to the budget as it is not clear about the funds the state would get from the Centre.
Worried state looks at Central funds; may delay session
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government is struggling to give finishing touches to the budget as it is not clear about the funds the state would get from the Centre. The government which initially wanted to hold the budget session from March 7 may delay it by another four or five days since the Union Budget would be presented on February 28.
According to sources, the first full-fledged budget of the AP state which is likely to be around the size of over Rs 1 lakh crore will not have any new programmes or schemes. The government is already struggling to implement the promises it had made before the elections, including the loan waiver scheme.
According to senior officials involved in the pre-budget meetings, there are severe constraints on internal revenue generation front. The financial support from the Centre in the post-bifurcation period was not encouraging and even now they are not getting any clear indications about the kind of support it would get in the financial year 2015-16. In the past, the practice was to submit state’s plan proposals to the Planning Commission, and in turn it used to finalise the state outlays and recommend the same to the Union Finance Ministry (UFM).
But the newly created Niti Aayog does not have any role in the allocation of funds to the states. It also has no role in recommending the planned budgets.
Under these circumstances, the government is looking forward to the UFM, for release of funds as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, which includes filling up a budgetary deficit of around Rs 15,000 crore as on June 2, 2014.
This apart, it is looking for more funding for its projects in irrigation, agriculture, industrial and building social infrastructure.
While trying to mount pressure on the Centre, it has also decided to take steps to bring some reforms in the budgetary process to contain the leakages on expenditure front. This they hope would bring in judicious utilization of the planned and non-plan expenditure. At present ‘funds earmarked towards student’s scholarships figure at nearly more than 15 places as these funds are channelised through multiple channels. Though the government would be depending heavily on departments like mines and geology, commercial taxes, excise, forest and few others for internal resource generation, it will take some time for all these efforts to yield results.
By: VRC Phaniharan
