Hyderabad: The Telangana state government, which presented a surplus budget for the 2017-18 financial year, is experiencing a revenue deficit in the first quarter.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had made some serious strictures about the financial management of the Telangana government in the previous year, and there seems to be no improvement this year.
In the first quarter, the total revenue receipts were Rs 19,849.04 crore and the revenue expenditure was Rs 21,930.01 crore. With revenue expenditure being more than the revenue receipts, there is a revenue deficit of Rs 2,080.97 crore.
The state government had projected a revenue surplus of Rs 4,571.30 crore.
There was not much difference between the targets and achievement of revenue earning departments in the first quarter. There was just overspending.
Officials say the reasons for the revenue deficit are mis-classification of expenditure and under-estimation of maintenance expenditure. The state government is implementing development schemes through corporations instead of through government departments.
Under Mission Bhagiratha, the government has so far spent about Rs 30,000 crore. But only some part of this expenditure is shown as revenue expenditure.
The state government has created a separate corporation for the implementation of Mission Bhagiratha, to mobilise funds from financial institutions so that it would not be liable under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.
The state government cannot borrow such a huge amount due to restrictions of the FRBM Act. So it borrows by setting up separate corporations.
Officials say that in fact the total expenditure under Mission Bhagiratha has to come under capital expenditure.
But since the scheme is implemented by a corporation, the expenditure cannot be shown as capital expenditure.
In the same way the double-bedroom houses scheme is being implemented through the Housing Corporation.The expenditure on this scheme also cannot be shown as capital expenditure.
