Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government is likely to face a financial crunch in coming days due to its unrestrained budget releasing orders to various departments. In the next six months of the current financial year the AP government has to depend on Central assistance and borrowings.
In the last six months the government issued budget release orders to various departments worth around Rs 40,000 crore. But in the last six months AP’s own tax and non-tax revenue was Rs 26,000 crore and borrowings Rs 8,000 crore. In the state 86% of the revenue will go for employees salaries and pensions. In the last six months Rs 5,500 crore were released for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP). Officials said in united AP also this much money was not released in six months.
They said there are no reports on whether works were done or not. For scholarships in the last six months Rs 1600 crore was released. In the same way the government has released thousands of crore to various departments. Without finding out whether the departments had spend or not the released funds the government is asking the finance department to release more and more funds. One senior official said if the releases were continued in the same way in future the government will face a problem paying salaries to employees. In addition to this, in the last six months non-plan expenditure was also done on a large scale.
Starting from N. Chandrababu Naidu’s swearing-in ceremony to Hudhud relief operations the government is spending huge amounts. This will include the collectors conference at Vijayawada, cabinet meeting at Visakhapatnam and meeting with 14th finance commission at Tirupati and Independence Day celebrations at Kurnool. For the renovation of the Chief Minister’s office at the secretariat and his camp office, renovation of minister’s chambers at the secretariat the government has spent a huge amount. Despite austerity orders the government is spending huge amounts.
