Telangana presents Rs.1.74 lakh crore budget

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IANS | 15 Mar, 2018
Telangana on Thursday presented a tax-free, revenue surplus budget for 2018-19, proposing an expenditure of Rs 174,453 crore, an increase of 16.57 percent over the previous year.

Of this, revenue expenditure is Rs 125,454 crore and capital expenditure Rs 33,369 crore. The capital expenditure is 19 percentage of total expenditure. This is substantially higher when compared to other states, Finance Minister Etela Rajender told the state Assembly.

The estimated revenue surplus is Rs 5,520 crore and fiscal deficit is Rs 29,077 crore. The fiscal deficit is 3.45 percent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).

"The new State of Telangana, formed amidst adverse conditions, uncertainties, doubts and challenges, rose to a level of becoming a role model for the entire country in many aspects," he said while presenting fifth budget since formation of Telangana in 2014.

The state revenue expected to touch Rs 73,751 crore in the next financial year, an increase of 20 percent over the revises estimates of 2017-18.

Transfers from the Centre are estimated at Rs 29,041 crore, a marginal increase over Rs 26,857 crore for 2017-18.

Telangana GSDP is expected to grow at 10.4 percent during 2017-18 as compared with the national GDP growth of 6.6 per cent.

He said Telangana achieved a double-digit growth bucking the national trend, despite the adverse short term to medium term impact of demonetisation and the teething problems following the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The budget proposals indicate that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government continued its focus on agriculture and allied sectors and on the welfare of poor and weaker sections of the society.

The budget proposes Rs 12,000 crore as input subsidy to farmers, Rs 500 crore for crop insurance and Rs 167 crore for promoting micro irrigation. The government has allocated Rs 25,000 crore for irrigation projects.

The budget has allocated Rs 1,800 crore for Mission Bhagiratha, the flagship scheme of the TRS government to provide piped water to all the households.

For two bedroom housing, another flagship programme, the minister allocated Rs 2,600 crore.

He announced that distribution of three acres of land to landless Dalits will continue this year.

The government identified 1.10 lakh vacancies and initiated steps to fill up 83,000 posts. It has so far filled 27,000 vacancies.

A medical devices hub would be set up at Sultanpur in Sanga Reddy district. A Mega Food Park would come up at Buggapadu in Khammam district.

Rajender claimed that under TSiPASS, a single window clearance system for industries, as many as 6,200 new units were set up, bringing Rs 1.18 lakh crore of investment to the state