JOIN USBudget: Telangana to waive farm loans up to Rs 1 lakh
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who is also holding the portfolio of finance, introduced a vote-on-account budget for the year 2019-2020 here on Friday and declared that the government is waiving all crop loans up to Rs 1 lakh.
“Redeeming our promise, we are proposing to waive off all agriculture term loans up to Rs one lakh outstanding as on December 11, 2018. An amount of Rs 6,000 crore has been proposed in the budget,” he said.
The total outlay of the budget has been pegged at Rs 1, 82,017 crores. Of this, revenue expenditure is Rs 1, 31,629 crore and capital expenditure is Rs.32, 815 crore. The estimated revenue surplus in 2019-20 would be Rs.6, 564 crore and fiscal deficit is Rs.27, 749 crore, which is 2.81 percent of GSDP.
The state’s own revenues for 2019-20 are estimated at Rs 94,776 crore in comparison with revised estimates of 2018-19 at Rs 72,777 crore.
Out of the budgetary allocation of Rs 20,107 crore for agriculture an amount of Rs 12,000 cr has been kept aside for flagship the Rythu Bandhu scheme.
“Rythu Bandhu has become a national agenda, with a number of states implementing this scheme. Even the recently introduced Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi of the Central government is based on Rythu Bandhu,” KCR said.
He also announced an amount of Rs 650 crore under Rythu Beema aimed at providing Rs 5 lakh life insurance to farmers.
Increasing the amount given as pension for the old age people under Asara scheme from Rs 1000 to Rs 2016 per month, he also reduced the age limit from 65 to 57 years.
For differently abled persons, the monthly pension has been increased from Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,016. The total outlay proposed towards Aasara pensions is Rs 12,067crore in 2019-20.
The other major allocations are: Rs 1,450 crore for Kalyana Lakshmi and Shadi Mubarak (assistance for newly-wed poor couples), Rs 1,810 crore towards Unemployment allowance, Rs 16,581 crore for SC welfare, Rs 9,825 crore for ST welfare, Rs 2,400 crore for minority welfare and Rs 1,000 crore for most backward classes’ welfare. For the irrigation department, an allocation of Rs 22,500 crore was made.