Telangana, which clocked impressive growth in 2017-18, will continue its momentum in 2018-19 and become a role model for the rest of the country, said Finance Minister Eatala Rajender here on Tuesday.
The GST regime is stabilising now and it would soon touch pre-GST growth rate of over 21% as government is taking measures to curb GST leakages and tax evasion. “The budget outlay for 2018-19 will be in line with this revenue growth rate,” he said at a media conference.
Telangana State’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth rate for 2017-18 is expected to be more than 10.5% while the national GDP is expected at 6.5% and touch 7 to 7.5% in the next financial year. While the national GDP declined from 2014 to 2018, Telangana State witnessed GSDP growth every year because of its daring decisions to implement mega infrastructure projects, he said.
The Finance Minister, who was engaged in department-wise meetings to review their budget proposals for 2018-19, said officials arrived at an understanding to formulate the budget proposals in line with the government’s priority sectors and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s vision. The meetings with the departments would be wrapped up in a day or two and the full level budget preparation would commence after a meeting with the Chief Minister.
The State with a budget outlay of ₹1.49 lakh crore in 2017-18 had taken up important and prestigious projects like Mission Bhagiratha and Kaleshwaram project, which are progressing at an impressive pace. Elaborating the growth achieved in various sectors, particularly in manufacturing, he said that the sector had negative growth prior to formation of State in 2012-13, 2013-14 but it took a turn for the better with revived growth rate of 9.8 in 2015-16. The State notched up this impressive growth by restoring uninterrupted power supply to industries within six months after State formation and by bagging No.1 rank in Ease of Doing Business parameters. The State is now giving 24-hour free power supply to the farm sector.
The State own tax revenue growth in 2015-16 was 21.1% and after GST implementation, it came down to 15 to 16%, highest in the country. Its per capita income was ₹52,000 more than that of national average. Mr. Rajender said they had urged the Centre to make budgetary allocations for Mission Bhagiratha and Mission Kakatiya as recommended by Niti Ayog and ₹10,000 crore for Kaleshwaram project, one of the biggest projects being executed by the State.
“We hope Centre will make these allocations in 2018-19 budget at least as the State is leading in infrastructure and asset creation,” he said.
The State also requested allocation of funds for Bayyaram Steel Plant, AIIMS, tribal and horticulture universities, besides the railway coach factory, which were promised to it.
