The Telangana government has directed the secretariat departments, heads of departments (HoDs) and officers to avoid speculative estimations, and over or under projections in the preparation of the budget estimates for the financial year 2024-25.
The projections for maintenance, office establishment — vehicles, rent, water, electricity, office stationary, outsourced services, welfare programmes and subsidies should be as per actual needs with proper justification. The directions follow Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s recent assertion that his government would present a “realistic budget” with focus on meeting the aspirations of the people.
All the heads of departments were accordingly asked to explore a new base to improve their receipts and curb leakages from the bottom level to the top by strict vigilance and improve the performance of the employees by fixing required personal performance indicators at each level.
The government has issued detailed guidelines for the departments and HoDs recently, and directed the officials concerned to submit estimates to administrative departments of the secretariat online by January 9. The administrative departments on their part should forward the estimates with their comments to the Finance department by January 11.
The government said the past experiences have shown that despite clear instructions, budget proposals in most cases are sent very late. Steps should therefore be taken to ensure that the dates prescribed by the government are strictly adhered to. “If the estimates are received after January 11, the Finance department will not be able to intimate any changes made in the estimates of departments as there will be no sufficient time for considering representations against changes effected by the department,” the government said in the order issued as top priority.
All the heads of departments/corporation/special purpose vehicles, autonomous bodies were requested to furnish loans raised by them from June 2, 2014, the day of formation of Telangana, till December 30, 2023, as per the proformas. “Government is committed to maintain transparency in governance, hence any omission/ deviations in this regard shall be viewed seriously,” the order read.
The HoDs and other estimating officers were directed to prepare budget estimates based on the existing rates of taxes, duties and fee and “no increase or reduction in such rates which has not been approved by the government should be proposed.”
Effective utilisation of as many grants as possible from the Centre appears to be a focus area of the new government. Accordingly, the department has been asked to identify relevant Centrally sponsored schemes which could be implemented in the State, and take necessary steps to implement such identified feasible schemes for the 2024-25 fiscal. In addition, steps should be taken to rationalise grants-in-aid expenditure relating to the departments consolidating the establishment expenditure for each of them.
The HoDs/estimating officers were requested to submit details of the services engaged on contract/outsourcing basis and activity engaged on outsourcing basis to work in various government departments, grants-in-aid institutions and also professionals engaged for specific activity which were permitted and continued with orders issued by the Finance (HRM) department from time to time.
