Hyderabad: The Union Budget presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley has completely altered the Budget proposals and estimates of Telangana government.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, finance minister Etela Rajender and senior officials of the finance department are virtually on their toes drafting the TS Budget afresh. The TS budget has to be presented to the Legislature next week.
The reason is that all their proposals and estimates on the allocation of funds and grants from the Centre for the implementation of Central Sponsored Schemes (CSS) have gone haywire due to unexpected decisions taken by the NDA government.
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About eight major schemes including housing will be adversely affected in TS on account of the Union Budget. Though funds to TS increased due to the enhanced share in Central taxes, it came down drastically due to the Centre withdrawing CCS schemes abruptly.
While the tax share of TS increased from Rs 7,720 crore to Rs 14,185 crore, the grants from the Centre towards CCS came down to Rs 5,119 crore from Rs 14,000 crore last year. The worst affected are housing schemes. Ironically, the construction of two bedroom flats for the poor remains the top priority of the CM. Mr Rao is keen to launch the scheme from 2015-16 by allotting funds in this Budget. He had pinned his hopes on getting maximum funds from the Centre under the Rural Housing Scheme and the Indira Awaas Yojana and had drafted the TS Budget estimates accordingly.
“Not only housing, the state has lost special funds from the Centre for the development of backward areas. We expected to get Rs 250 crore this year under this but the scheme has been abolished by the Centre. There are more such CSS schemes which the Centre has either abolished or cut grants,” said Mr Etela.
The funds for other schemes which the TS lost include Model Schools, National E-Governance, Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Abhiyan, National Mission on Food Processing, Tourism Infrastructure Development Scheme, modernisation of police and export promotion schemes.
