Telangana Budget hits Rs 1.5 lakh crore, debt soars
This is the fourth consecutive Budget of over Rs 1 lakh crore presented by Telangana government.
Hyderabad: Finance minister Etela Rajender on Monday presented Rs 1.49 lakh crore revenue-surplus budget for the financial year 2017-18 in Legislative Assembly, even as the debt burden increased.
He said the demonetisation has impacted revenue collection in stamps and registration department and transport department though other sectors had recovered. However, he stated, the exact loss of demonetisation is yet to be ascertained and will be known after March 31.
For the first time, Plan and Non-Plan expenditure have been done away with and replaced by establishment expenditure and scheme expenditure. This is the fourth consecutive Budget of over Rs 1 lakh crore presented by Telangana government.
However, the government has always revised the expenditure downwards at the end of the fiscal. For 2015-16, the budget size was Rs 1.15 lakh crore, but only Rs 97,923 crore was spent. For 2016-17, the budget size was Rs 1.30 lakh crore. However, it has now been reduced to Rs 1.12 lakh crore as per revised estimates.
Mr Rajender blamed lower realisation of revenue due to various causes for the lower expenditure. The government sought Rs 19,000 crore as a special grant from the Central government for some of its schemes like Mission Kakatiya, Mission Bhagiratha, etc.
Mr Rajender said the government submitted the plea to NITI Ayog and hoped Prime Minister Narendra Modi would release the funds. Mr Rajender, however, ruled out any plan to sell government lands to mobilise financial resources in view of slump in real estate market.
The state’s debt has risen to Rs 1.14 lakh crore this year. The state government is expecting to borrow around Rs 26,000 crore over the next one year. At the end of the next fiscal year, the state debt will soar to Rs 1.40 lakh crore — an amount equal to the state’s annual budget.
In FY2015-16, the state debt equalled to 16.18 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), 17.55 per cent at the end of FY2016-17 and 18.51 per cent in FY2017-18.