Telangana government has allocated the highest annual budget ever in the history of the country for irrigation, power subsidy and agriculture.
The allocation for the three sectors constitutes 26% of the overall budget, said Finance Minister Eatala Rajender.
A beaming Mr. Rajender, immediately after presenting his fifth budget to the State Assembly on Thursday, told a media conference that the budget was focussed on finer aspects of farming with the closure of loan waiver for farmers amounting to ₹17,000 crore last year.
The government focussed on 24-hour power supply to agriculture with an additional subsidy burden of ₹1,000 crore to the government and investment support scheme to farmers with an outlay of ₹12,000 crore.
On irrigation front, the government’s focus is on integrating Kaleswaram project with Mallannasagar and mid-Manair. “Hopefully, water will be released on full-scale from Mallannasagar in 2019-20,” the Minister said.
Mr. Rajendar said the budget belied expectations of people that it would be a popular one with an eye on elections next year. On the contrary, it was a practical budget. Earlier, people were indifferent to budgets but now they have a sense of ownership in them, he said
There was a 22.84% growth in State’s Own Tax Revenues in 2017-18 despite demonetisation and GST implementation. The per capita income of Telangana is also ₹63,000, higher than the national average this year.
Against the budgeted expenditure of ₹ 1.49 lakh crore in 2017-18, Mr. Rajender said the State government is likely to end the year with an expenditure of ₹1.42 lakh crore. The government will overcome the negative impact of GST and demonetisation and achieve the targeted expenditure of ₹1.74 lakh crore in 2018-19, Mr. Rajender said.
