The State government has made a whopping allocation of ₹41,062.73 crore to the welfare departments for the financial year 2020-21 in its annual budget. The government introduced a new scheme, Jagananna thodu, financial assistance scheme for street hawkers.
Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy, who presented the budget in the Assembly on Tuesday, said that the development of human resources required special attention to the welfare needs of the marginalised social groups.
“It is our effort to implement programmes for the benefit of all groups to enable them to participate in the mainstream development process. Our government is committed to the welfare of all sections of the society cutting across lines of caste, religion, gender and vocation,” he said.
The government tripled the budgetary allocations to the Backward Classes (BCs) compared to the last fiscal. The allocations stand at ₹26,934 crore as against the last year's budget estimates of ₹7,271 crore. The revised estimates (RE) for the last year were ₹18,986 crore indicating an increase in the expenditure towards the BC welfare. Similarly, the budget estimates for the minority welfare was only ₹952 crore during the last financial year but the revised estimates was ₹1,562 crore. The government made an allocation of ₹2,055 crore for the current fiscal. An allocation of ₹3,456 crore was made towards women, children, differently-abled and senior citizens.
Kapu welfare
The overall outlay proposed for the welfare of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in the SC Sub-Plan was ₹15,735 crore. Similarly, an outlay of ₹5,177 crore was earmarked for the Tribal Sub-Plan. An allocation of ₹25,331 crore was made for the BC Sub-Plan. An overall outlay of ₹2,846 crore was made towards Kapu welfare.
An allocation of ₹5 crore was made for visit to the holy land of Jerusalem under minority welfare. The government revived the scheme of pilgrimage to the holy land of Jerusalem and the subsidy for the pilgrimage was increased from ₹20,000 to ₹40,000. Also, the incentives amount for Imams and Mouzans to ₹50 crore.
