Vijayawada: The AP government has named two schemes after Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, even as it boosted investment in the education sector to record levels in its maiden Budget presented by finance minister Buggana Rajendranath on Friday.
Amma Vodi, to provide financial backing to families to send children to school and intermediate college, will now be called Jagananna Amma Vodi. The fee reimbursement scheme has been renamed Jagananna Vidya Deevena.
Under Amma Vodi, mothers who send their children to schools and intermediate colleges, will get an incentive of Rs15,000 per annum. The Vidya Deevena scheme will extend fee rei-mbursement and mainten-ance support of Rs20,000 per year to college students.
“The Chief Minister was initially reluctant on naming a scheme after him. But we persuaded him to agree. Amma Vodi which is first of its kind scheme in the country has been conceptualised by him,” said finance minister Buggana Rajendranath while presenting the Budget on Friday.
Earlier, Mr Rajendranath while presenting the budget gave the highest allocation of around 14.31 per cent of the total Budget, or Rs32,618 crore, to general education. This is 34.87 per cent higher than last year.
Next in line was rural development at Rs29,329 crore, or 12.87 per cent of the Budget. YSR Rythu Bharosa. the Rs12,500 per farmer investment subsidy scheme, got Rs8,750 crore and Jagananna Amma Vodi Rs6,455.80 crore. The new capital construction got allocation of Rs500 crore.
The Budget has an estimated outlay of Rs2,27,972 crore, revenue expenditure of Rs1,80,475.94 crore and capital expenditure of Rs32,293.39 crore, which includes Rs8,994 crore towards principal repayment of public debt.
While the revenue expenditure is estimated to increase by around 20.10pc, the capital expenditure is estimated to grow by around 12.60 per cent over the 2018-19 financial year.
The estimated revenue de-ficit is around Rs1,778.52 crore and the fiscal deficit is estimated at around Rs35,260 crore. The fiscal def-icit will be around 3.30 per cent of the GSDP and revenue deficit 0.17 per cent.
