The maiden full fledged budget of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government is a no-frills affair though it seeks to raise the outlay by Rs. 15,000 crore, taking the overall figure to Rs. 1.15 lakh crore from Rs. 1 lakh core the previous year.
On the face of it, the hiked outlay is impressive. However, the worrisome factor is about how the government intends to raise the resources as it fell short of an estimated Rs. 20,227 crore it had hoped to realise from Central assistance and another Rs 6,500 crore by sale of government lands.
The budget presented by Finance Minister Eatala Rajender has an estimated non-plan expenditure of Rs 63,306 crore (Rs 51,989 crore last year) and plan expenditure of Rs 52,383 crore (Rs 48,648 crore). The revenue surplus was estimated at Rs 531 crore (Rs 301 crore).
A redeeming feature of the budget was that the fiscal deficit (expenditure in excess of revenue) was pegged at Rs 16,969 crore as against Rs 17,398 crore last year, largely due to Centre’s diktat to States to adhere to the limit of 3 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product. However, the government fixed the fiscal deficit at 3.49 per cent of GSDP in anticipation that the Centre will take a decision during the year on the recommendation of 14{+t}{+h}Finance Commission allowing an additional borrowing limit of 0.5 per cent of GSDP.
