Rs 1.83 lakh cr budget tabled in AP Assembly

Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy on Monday presented a massive Rs 1.83-lakh-crore budget for the financial year 2014-15.

The finance minister introduced the vote-on-account budget for the next six months. Legislators from Telangana opposed introduction of the outlay, saying the budget should be presented only after a new state was formed. Slogans were raised by pro and anti-Telangana MLAs right from the beginning of the session.

Congress MLAs from Telangana, who were upset over the way women ministers were treated in New Delhi recently, refused to allow Reddy present the budget. As the din continued, Reddy cut short his 32-page address and concluded it within 15 minutes. The Telangana ministers also kept off from a cabinet meeting conducted ahead of the session, even as AICC state in-charge Digvijay Singh urged them to attend. The decision to skip the meeting was taken at an informal get-together at senior minister K Jana Reddy’s residence.

The budget pegged plan expenditure at Rs 67,950 crore and non-plan expenditure at Rs 1,15,179 crore. The budget was close to 10 per cent higher than previous year’s Rs 1.61 lakh crore, which included a plan outlay of Rs 59,422 crore and a non-plan expenditure of Rs 1.01 lakh crore.

Introducing the budget for the fourth consecutive year, Reddy said it projected an estimated revenue surplus of Rs 474 crore and a fiscal deficit of Rs 25,402 crore by the end of the financial year.  The revenue surplus by the end of the current fiscal was estimated at Rs 1.023 crore and the fiscal deficit around Rs 24,487 crore.

The fiscal deficit was pegged at around 2.6 per cent of the GSDP, well within the limit prescribed by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.