Hyderabad: More than Rs 1 lakh crore out of Rs 1.82 lakh crore state of the Budget is in the hands of four ministers. Welfare minister Koppula Eswar, a first-timer in the Cabinet, tops the list with a kitty of Rs 47,513 crore, even ahead of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao who is holding a clutch of ministries.
The remaining eight ministers together have a Budget of less than half the total Budget. The vote-on-account budget presented by Mr Rao on Friday gave priority to welfare and irrigation, which put Mr Eswar in charge of more than one-quarter of the Budget funds. Mr Rao follows in the second place with Rs 22,500 crore for the irrigation ministry.
With the implementation of Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bhima and other programmes, the agriculture department, headed by debutant minister Singireddy Niran-jan Reddy, was allotted Rs 20,107 crore.
The panchayat raj ministry was allotted Rs 10,716.61 crore and rural development Rs 8,443.34 crore, totalling Rs 19,159.95 crore. Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao was allotted both ministries. These five ministries have got a total of Rs 1,09,279 crore out of the total Budget of Rs 1,82,017 crore, leaving Rs 72,738 crore for the others.
