Hyderabad: All eyes are on Dalit Bandhu scheme as the finance ministry is set to begin budgetary exercise this week for 2022-23.
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao had promised to allocate Rs 20,000 crore to Dalit Bandhu every year in the budget from 2022-23. However, mobilising such a huge amount of funds for a single scheme poses a major challenge to the finance department as the gap between income and expenditure of the state government has already widened due to increased expenditure on welfare schemes.
Official sources in the finance department said the state government was already spending nearly 85 per cent of its own tax revenues on welfare schemes. They said the average expenditure on welfare schemes per month had now increased to Rs 5,022 crore.
Of this, the expenditure on Rythu Bandhu remains the highest at Rs 1,233 crore as the government spends nearly Rs 15,000 crore on Rythu Bandhu.
If the Chief Minister’s promise is fulfilled, then Dalit Bandhu will beat Rythu Bandhu with the highest allocation of Rs 20,000 crore. He promised to spend Rs 20,000 crore every year on Dalit Bandhu for the next seven years to cover all 17 lakh Dalit families in the state to extend Rs 10 lakh financial assistance to each Dalit family.
Official sources said the government had been spending Rs 977 crore per month on Aasara pensions, Rs 921 crore on free power to agriculture and other sectors, Rs 435 crore on crop loan waiver scheme, Rs 208 crore on Rythu Bima, Rs 196 crore on subsidy rice, Rs 250 crore on sheep distribution, Rs 208 crore on industrial incentives, Rs 27 crore on KCR Kits and Rs 567 crore on miscellaneous schemes.
The government is depending on loans and grants-in-aid from the Centre to meet additional expenses as 85 per cent of the state's own tax revenues are being spent on welfare schemes. This year (2021-22), the government has decided to take loans of Rs 47,500 crore through open market borrowings. Of this, the government already mobilised Rs 28,500 crore by November end. It can mobilise just Rs 19,000 crore in the remaining four months of this fiscal (December-March).
Finance minister T. Harish Rao requested the Centre to increase FRMB limit from 4 per cent to 5 per cent in June this year which will enable the state government to mobilise an additional Rs 12,000 crore. But there has been no response from the Centre so far. The grants-in-aid from the Centre also came down drastically putting more financial pressure on the state government.
The state government has estimated to get Rs 38,000 crore toward grants-in-aid from the Centre in the Budget 2021-22. But what Telangana got was just Rs 5,000 crore in seven months till October-end. Officials expect to get another Rs 5,000 crore maximum in the remaining five months. This leaves a deficit of Rs 23,000 crore to the state government.
