Yanamala pegs it around 1.3 lakh crore

Highlights

Finance Minister says current year revenue deficit is expected to touch Rs 18,000 crore as govt over spent on agriculture and rural development. Major revenue-generating depts. like excise, transport and commercial taxes fall short of set targets in 3rd quarter to widen revenue-expenditure gap. A committee of experts formed to advise on ways and means to generate more revenues without burdening the people.

Hyderabad: Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu said that the budget estimates for the ensuing financial year could be pegged at Rs 1.30 crore. Addressing media here on Saturday, he said that after the end of the third quarter, the State is facing a revenue deficit of about Rs 9,000 crore and taking into account, the reaming three months of the current financial year it may go further up to Rs 15,000 to Rs 18,000 crore.

Following this, the departments were asked to adjust within the allocated budget funds, and not to demand additional funds from the finance department, he added. So far, the government had spent more than the budgetary allocations to the tune of Rs 12,000 crore. The government had spent more than allocated funds on irrigation, agriculture and rural development segments. But, at the same time the revenue shortfall was due to the sluggish income from the revenue-generating departments during the current financial year, particularly during the third quarter, he said.

Except forest and mining departments all other revenue- earning departments have been lagging in reaching their revenue targets, Yanamala added. Though the stamps and registrations department had shown signs of earning more income during the first two quarters, the same was not witnessed during the third quarters of current financial year.

Particularly, the top earning departments like Excise, Transport and Commercial Taxes could not achieve set targets during the third quarter. The cumulative effect resulted in the huge gap between the revenues and expenditure, he said. However, the government is trying to narrow the revenue gap during the remaining period of the financial year by netting more revenues from the non-tax segments like Barytes and sand mining, the Minister said.

In addition to this, the government has appointed a committee headed by a retired IAS officer CS Rao, experts in the finance Narasimha Murthy and Kutumba Rao, State Finance Minister, senior officials of the finance ministry as its members. The committee would recommend to the government on the fiscal management of funds, and also make specific recommendations on ways and means of increasing revenues, without any additional tax burden on the people, Ramakrishnudu said.

Meeting of the committee will he held on January 13, to discuss the way forward for the government to net more revenues, he said. Steps were taken to collect the pending funds from the Centre.

Ensuing budget for the FY 2016-17 would be based on the actual demands of the departments, and the departments were already on the job. The department-wise review meetings of the budget estimates for the next FY would begin soon, Finance Minister added.

Print Article

Just In

Yanamala pegs it around 1.3 lakh crore

News

Company

Entertainment

All News