Proposing an unemployment allowance of Rs 3,016 per month ahead of elections, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday presented a Vote-on-Account Budget for 2019-20 that has an estimated expenditure of Rs 1,82,017 crore, an increase of 4% over the previous year.
Presenting the interim budget in the Assembly, KCR, as the CM is popularly known, said the GSDP growth rate of the state has doubled since its formation in 2014 and its budget for the new fiscal showed a revenue expenditure of Rs 1,31,629 crore and a capital expenditure of Rs 32,815 crore.
“In 2019-20, the estimated revenue surplus is Rs 6,564 crore and fiscal deficit is Rs 27,749 crore,” KCR said in his budget speech. The fiscal deficit is 2.81% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).
“State’s own revenues for Budget Estimate (BE) of 2019-20 are at Rs 94,776 crore in comparison with the Revised Estimate (RE) of 2018-19 at Rs 72,777 crore,” he said.
Transfers from the Centre as per BE 2019-20 is Rs 22,835 crore, while in RE 2018-19 these are estimated at Rs 28,042 crore, he added.
“The growth rate of GSDP, at constant prices, was 4.2% in the two years prior to state formation. By 2017-18, this accelerated by more than twice to 10.4%,” the CM said.
Speaking about agriculture in the state and his promise to waive off farm loans, the CM said, “We are proposing to waive off all agriculture term loans up to Rs 1 lakh, outstanding as on December 11, 2018. Towards this, an amount of Rs 6,000 crore is proposed.”
The Chief Minister also mentioned the state’s flagship Rythu Bandhu scheme, an investment support scheme where farmers were given Rs 8,000 per acre annually, at the rate of Rs 4,000 per acre per crop. “We propose to increase this support to Rs 5,000 per acre per crop. The total support in a year will be Rs 10,000 per acre. The amount proposed in 2019-20 towards Rythu Bandhu is Rs 12,000 crore,” KCR said.
He also proposed Rs 1,810 crore in the budget to introduce unemployment allowance of Rs 3,016 per month to those eligible.
“The details of the scheme are being worked out. Instructions have been given to officials in this regard. An amount of Rs 1,810 crore is proposed in the budget,” KCR said.
KCR said that since the Centre introduced a Vote-on-Account budget for the next year and as there was no clarity as to what the priorities would be for expenditure, the state government too was presenting an interim budget.
“There is no clarity as to what the priorities for expenditure would be where policies, centrally sponsored schemes, etc are concerned. Once the full budget is introduced, then only there would be clarity in these matters. The quantum of allocation to each state would also be clear by then. That’s the main reason for our state to introduce the vote on account budget,” he explained.
(With IANS inputs)