Telangana tightens purse strings; Chandrasekhar Rao seeks plan to cut costs

Hyderabad: With the state’s financial condition worsening due to poor revenue collections and increased interest burden on loans, the Telangana State government has imposed restrictions to curb wasteful expenditure in the remaining four mon-ths of this financial year (2015-16).

It will impose ban on purchases of items like furniture, electrical app-liances, computers, printers, photocopier mach-ines, air conditioners, phones and office vehicles besides restricting foreign trips till April 2016. A circular to this effect is expected to be issued soon.

Mr Rao, who emphasised discipline in spending, asked ministers and officials not to waste money on vehicles and fuel besides cutting down on operational costs in all government offices drastically.

The government, which had banked on sale of lands to mobilise funds, lost hope after it found few takers for its recent sale notification due to slowdown in the realty sector.

Of the Rs 15,000 crore loan limit for this year, the government has already secured Rs 12,000 crore through sale of bonds. It has been seeking an increase in the FRBM loan limit, from 3 per cent to 3.5 per cent, from the Centre for the past few months to secure more loans but the Centre has not responded.

The TS government had presented a Budget of Rs 1.15 lakh crore for 2015-16. Of this, non-plan expenditure alone comprises Rs 63,306 crore.

Seventy per cent of this is going for salaries and pension and 30 per cent for other expenditure on offices, vehicles and operational costs. Finance officials pointed out that Rs 15,000 crore was being spent on miscellaneous expenditure and if austerity measures were implemented, around Rs 5,000 crore could be saved this year. Following this, the CM asked officials to come up with measures to curb wasteful expenditure to save Rs 5,000 crore.