Budget to please poor

Thrust on welfare programmes; Liberal allocations for SCs, STs, BCs and Minorities

• Anam presents budget with highest ever outlay for a state at Rs 1.61 croreA
• Targets 6 % growth in agriculture, 10.5 % in industry, 11.5 % in servicesA
• Thrust on Agriculture with a Special Action Plan
• Tax-free with an eye on polls
• TRS members suspended for the day

Hyderabad: Finance Minister Anam Ramnarayana Reddy has unveiled what is a 'please-all' election year budget, giving greater thrust to the allocations benefiting the larger segments of the electorate. While presenting the record Rs 1.61 lakh crore annual Budget for 2013-2014 in the state Assembly on Monday, he sought to play it safe without subjecting any section to additional tax burden, at least for now. The state government has given greater thrust to welfare programmes in the budget. For the first time in the history of the state budget the government has presented a separate Agricultural Action Plan with exclusive budgetary allocations of Rs 25,962 crore for the sector together with some 10 allied subjects. Of this Rs 17,694 crore is for plan component while the balance will be non- plan expenditure. The idea behind introducing this new feature is to help comprehensive development of the agriculture sector. While Finance Minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy introduced the General Budget, Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana presented the Agriculture Action Plan. Another highlight of this budget is the statutory status accorded to the SC, ST Sub -Plans. The Finance Minister allotted Rs 8,585 crore (16.2 per cent) and Rs 3,666 crore (6.6 per cent) respectively out of the annual plan size to these two sub-plans. This accounts for a total of 22.8 per cent of the total budget. Similarly, for BC welfare the Minister allocated 33 per cent more than that of last year. For Minority welfare the hike is said to be 110 per cent more than last year. Another change brought in the budget presentation this year is the constitution of departmentally related Standing Committees of the state legislature for considering the demands for grants. The Finance Minister said the proposed outlay includes non- plan expenditure of Rs, 1,01,926 crore and plan expenditure of Rs 59,422 crore. The tax free budget has a revenue surplus of Rs 1,023 crore and a fiscal deficit of Rs 24,487 crore. The budget outlay for the current financial year was Rs 1,45,854 crore. According to the FM, this budget is "optimistically targeted" to attain six per cent growth in agriculture, 10.5 per cent in industry and 11.5 per cent in services leading to an overall growth target of 10 per cent during the 12th plan period. Anam said the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) at current prices for 2012-13 rose by 12.72 per cent to Rs 7,38,497 crore. At constant prices (2004-05), however, the GSDP was estimated to be Rs 4.26 lakh crore.A Per capita income too was projected to rise, as per advance estimates, to Rs 77,277 in 2012-13 from Rs 68,970 the previous year. Ramnarayana Reddy exuded confidence that this budget would usher in an era of accelerated growth of critical infrastructure in the economy and of human development indicators of all sections of people.A Interestingly, the allocation for irrigation in the 2013-14 budget has come down compared to the current year's allocation of Rs 15,010 crore. Irrigation has been getting lion's share of allocation since 2004. Allocations to key economic sectors include Rs 7,117 crore to energy ( Rs 5,937 crore in last budget) and Rs 13,804 crore to irrigation (Rs 15,013 crore).A Earlier, the Speaker N Manhohar suspended the TRS members for a day for obstructing the proceedings demanding that a resolution on separate T state be introduced in the House.