Hyderabad: The AP government has begun laying the ground to increase user charges and public contributions in the next financial year. The finance department has asked all departments to send proposals to raise resources as part of the preparations for the 2016-17 state Budget, saying “the Budget should not be instrumental, it should be performance-based and result-oriented.”
The finance department wants to develop a strategy to augment resources from all possible sources including improved collection of tax and non-tax revenues, public contributions, private investments; user charges and contributions from corporate social responsibility (CSR). The finance officials have asked all the departments to create annual and quarterly performance targets at all levels and build a system of individual and collective incentives and disincentives in order to achieve their targets. The finance department said the heads of department and the estimating officers should prepare Budget estimates for receipts based on the existing rates of taxes, duties and fees.
All heads of department were told to explore new avenues for improving their receipts and curbing leakages by strict vigilance. The departments should make provisions for all sanctioned schemes but not for schemes of new expenditure which have been submitted to the government but not been sanctioned.
