Andhra Pradesh banks on minerals

Hyderabad:To make up its revenue deficit of Rs 6,063 crore, the AP government is banking on mineral wealth in case the Centre doesn’t come forward to give grant-in-aids as anticipated. Despite the socio economic survey 2013-14 revealing that mining and quarrying sector witnessed a negative growth, finance minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu reiterated after his Budget speech that mining revenue was an important non-tax revenues that the state was banking on. He said that AP was expecting Rs 1,226 crore from mines and minerals.

The state government is working on increasing this revenue further as the AP mineral development corporation, that has already been handed over sand quarrying, is likely to be given new mining leases of other mineral wealth too.

If the Centre’s grant-in-aids are excluded, the revenue deficit is likely to go up to Rs 25,574 crore and the government is hoping that with APMDC taking up the new mining leases, it will make up for the deficit.

The government through APMDC, is planning to enter into oil and natural gas exploration too. The department has requested the Centre to allocate on-shore oil and natural gas blocks to APMDC for exploration on nomination basis. The recent decision of the Union Cabinet to increase royalty rates from 10 per cent to 15 per cent for iron ore will also boost mining revenues of the state.

According to the economic survey released on August 19 during the Budget, mining and quarrying registered a negative growth of 17.22 per cent, which was attributed to agitations in the state. The mineral and mining sector contributed Rs 88.64 crore to the state.

The services sector in AP grew faster than agriculture and industries sector and contributed 55.96 per cent of Gross State Domestic product (GSDP). GSDP at current prices for the year 2013-14 is estimated at Rs 4.75 lakh crore as against Rs 4.19 lakh crore in the previous year. Macro economic aggregates of Socio Economic Survey revealed that the contribution of service sector was Rs 2.41 crore.

The share of agriculture reduced 23.33 per cent and industry 20.71 per cent. In sectors allied to agriculture, fishing sector showed an impressive growth rate. The substantial increase in production of prawns helped the fishing sector rake in Rs 16.54 crore in 2013-14.

Construction sector in AP registered a growth of 5.52 per cent and manufacturing sector grew 5.11 per cent. Per capita income of AP in the last financial year was put at Rs 85,797 as against All India figure of Rs 74,380 crore. Among districts, Vizag topped in Gross Domestic District product with Rs 56,668 crore.