With the slowdown rattling the State economy and the fund flows from the Centre, the Telangana Government has pared the state Budget to Rs 1,46,492 crore for the financial year 2019-20 and asked the departments to be prudent in spendings.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who presented the full Budget for 2019-20 in the Assembly on Monday, said that the slowdown had resulted in a slide in the growth rate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the last five quarters.
Presenting the Budget, the Chief Minister how the revenue collections, particularly Goods and Services Tax collections, had plunged forcing the State to take compensation of Rs 700 crore in the June quarter and Rs 175 crore in the April Quarter this financial year.
The TRS Government presented a Vote-on-Account Budget on February 23 this year, after voted back to power in December 2018. With no clarity available on the fund flow from the Central pool, the State Government chose to present a Vote-on-Account Budget.
Though T Harish Rao has assumed charge as the Finance Minister on Sunday, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao himself presented the Budget in the Assembly.
“We expected a growth rate of 15 per cent in revenues for the current year. But we registered only 5.46 per cent in the first four months of this year. The growth rate in Excise Collections in the first quarter is only 2.59 per cent. Taxes from the sale of Motor Vehicles registered a decline of 2.6 per cent as against an average of 19 per cent growth rate in the last five years,” The Chief Minister said.
“The growth rate in the national GDP has begun to slide from the first quarter of 2018-19. The growth rate fell to 7 per cent in the second quarter, 6.6 per cent in the third quarter and 5.8 per cent in the last quarter. It further fell to 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2019-20. This has impacted the entire country,” he added.
“We have discussed the grave situation in the country and prepared the Budget with a realistic approach, keeping in view the revenue receipts,” he said.
He said despite poor revenue collections the government decided to continue with the Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bima schemes by allocating Rs 12,000 crore for the former scheme and Rs 1,135 crore for the latter scheme towards premium payments to the Life Insurance Company.
The State Government has decided to allot money to clear all the backlogs in all the departments.
The House will meet on Saturday to take up the further business.