Hyderabad: The Union Budget presented in the Parliament on Tuesday has altered the TS government's budget calculations for 2022-23. With tax devolution to states remaining the same and all hopes of getting higher grants from the Centre dashed, the state government is unable to decide on whether to go in for a 'jumbo Budget' of Rs 2.31 lakh crore like last year (2021-22) relying on its own revenue sources or to prune the budget size taking the ground-realities into active consideration.
Despite the Covid-induced financial crisis, the state government came up with an ambitious Rs 2.31 lakh crore (2021-22) budget last March., which was significantly higher than the Rs 1.82 lakh crore budget for 2020-21. Prior to the presentation of the 2021-22 budget, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao issued a statement saying that the state government had suffered Rs 50,000 crore revenue loss on account of Covid.
This fuelled speculations that he could cut the budget size in 2021-22 and make it less than the 1.82 lakh crore budget of the previous fiscal. But he surprised everyone with a Rs 2.31 lakh crore budget for 2021-22.
With less than two months to go for the financial year to end, the government is struggling to hit even the Rs two lakh crore mark by March 31.
Official sources in the finance department blame the Centre for the shortfall saying that the huge cut in central grants had led to the deficit. The Centre, which was supposed to release grants of Rs 38,669 crore for 2021-22, only released Rs 5,687 crore. The department did not pin much hope on getting higher central grants in 2022-23.
The biggest revenue source for the state government, and one which could surpass the income generated in 2021-22, comes from property registrations because of the increase in market value of agriculture lands, non-agriculture lands, plots and apartments besides of registration charges. The second hike in market value was affected as recently as February 1.
Against this backdrop, the finance department has left the choice to take a call on whether to go for a 'jumbo budget' or cut its size for 2022-23 to Rao.
The state government plans to present Budget 2022-23 in the Assembly in the first week of March.
