Telangana: No big bang Budget likely

Slump in revenues reason for not ramping up outlay

Hyderabad: Uncertainty over revenue inflows seems to have deterred the state government from going high on budget allocations in the ensuing budget.

Top sources told The Hans India that the budget outlay for 2017-18 financial year is unlikely to cross Rs 1.40 lakh crore.

The outlay for 2016-17 was Rs 1.30 lakh crore and in 2015-16 it was Rs 1.13 lakh crore. The budget is likely to be presented during the last week of February.

The main reason for the quantum jump in outlay in the previous year as compared to 2015-16 was because the government had achieved nearly 75 per cent of the targets in revenue generation like land registration, excise, commercial taxes and Transport departments.

Enthused by the high revenue generation in the first two quarters, the government thought that it would be able to come up with an outlay of Rs 1.60 lakh crore for 2017-18.

But because of the demonetisation, revenue from land registrations dropped by 60 per cent, in Transport department by about 50 per cent and 20 to 30 per cent from Commercial Taxes
department.

Sources said it is estimated that the state would lose nearly Rs 8000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore revenue in the third and fourth quarters.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao wants to wait till the Union Budget is presented on February 1 to finalise the outlay for the state Budget.

The government would like to get some clarity on the allocation of funds for the centrally-sponsored schemes, devolution of funds and compensation to the state under the GST regime etc.

“This time, the state government has taken the central allocations to the state as the main source and not the state revenues in the Budget outlay,” the official said.