CM describes State Budget as development-oriented

Hyderabad, Feb 19 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy today described the state budget as the most welfare, growth and development-oriented one ever presented by any state in the country.

Addressing a press conference after presentation of the budget by Finance Minister K Rosaiah in the Assembly, the Chief Minister said the surplus budget would help the state to prosper as allocations to all the sectors have been increased tremendously.

For the financial year 2007-08, the annual state plan had been fixed at Rs 30,018 crore, a 53 per cent increase from the current year plan allocation of Rs 19,557 crore, he said adding the percentage of the plan expenditure to the total expenditure increased to 37 per cent.

Stating that the allocations to Irrigation projects, Housing, Education and Health had been increased substantially, he said the irrigation sector got a major chunk of plan expenditure at Rs 13,000 crore from 10,028 crore showing an increase of 30 per cent.

Under the Jalayagnam scheme, the government had provided water to irrigate 12 lakh acres during the last two and a half years, he said adding the government had decided to provide water to 12 lakh acres every year to increase the agriculture growth.

The government had taken measures to increase the agriculture growth from the present 2.8 per cent to four per cent, he added.

The total non-plan expenditure was estimated at Rs 41,481 crore and for the salaries, it was estimated at Rs 12,797 crore and for the pensions Rs 4520 crore. The budget estimates for the welfare sector had been increased to Rs 4057 crore from Rs 3237 crore with an increase of 25 per cent, he added.

Dr Reddy said the allocation for housing had been raised from Rs 1823 crore to Rs 5443 crore while the allocation for minority welfare had gone up from Rs 69 crore to Rs 123 crore.

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