TRS government to read its maiden budget

Hyderabad, Nov 5:The Telenagana government is on testing waters today. It will be reading out its maiden

today, which will mainly be concerned with the death of farmers and the poor in the state, who the party claims, have been ignored in undivided Andhra Pradesh. Power crisis is likely to be another subject of debate in the assembly.

Finance Minister Etela Rajender is set to present the budget of Telangana today at 11 am. While he will be introducing the budget in the assembly, deputy chief minister T Rajaiah is slated to read it out in the legislative council.

Sources inside the ministry reveal that planning would be made for Rs 85,000 crore, out of which RS 55,000 crore would be nonplanned expenditure.

Rajender pointed out that the budget would be pathbreaking in its nature as it is likely to compensate for the unfair ways Telangana was treated before bifurcation.

However, economic experts suggest otherwise. Given the last budget reading, where Telangana got over Rs 26,700 crore under various heads covering the plan expenditure, it is believed that it would be hard to spend more than Rs 30,000 crore during the rest of the financial year as revenue collections have just reached the target. Moreover funds were not sufficient to fulfill the poll promises of KCR distribution of farm land to the Dalit households, two-bedroom houses for poor, enhancement of pension for widows, senior citizens, and the physically challenged.

An official in the finance department of the state said,"The state is facing severe financial crunch despite a moderate growth in tax collection. This is because the government's commitment to waive off farm loans and spend on power purchase which are the burning issues right now."

An official release suggests that the government has been spending to the tune of Rs 5 crore a day ti purchase power. It has also released Rs 4,250 crore for the first installment of the farm waiver scheme.

Rajaiah said,"The government will spend over Rs 15,000 crore for the next three years to build roads in the urban and rural areas. As we are aiming at rejuvenating 45,000 lakes the funds would be allocated to take up the works at 9,000 lakes in this budget."

However, some of the other schemes like PDS rice to 6 kg per head, Kalyana Lakshmi' and `Shadi Mubarak' schemes for brides from poor families, etc will have to wait for the Household Survey conducted in August.

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