Government set to introduce, pass full budget today

VIJAYAWADA: The state government is all set to introduce the full budget and get the approval of both the Houses of the AP Legislature on Thursday itself. Before the commencement of the session, the State Cabinet will meet under the chairmanship of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy to give its nod to the budget. The proceedings of the Assembly and the Council will commence at 9 am. Instead of a joint session, MLAs and MLCs will seat in the Assembly and Council Halls respectively.

Governor Biswabushan Harichandan will address the members of both the Houses through a video conference from the Raj Bhavan. Later, the Business Advisory Committee will meet to finalise the number of days of sitting and the agenda. Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath will table the budget in the Assembly and the formalities like thanks giving to the Governor’s address, highlighting the features of the budget, discussion and passage will be completed on the same day and both the Houses will be adjourned.

In fact, the government, which could not hold the budget session before the beginning  of the 2021-22 fiscal due to local body elections and other reasons, had already promulgated an ordinance (vote-on-account budget) to meet the expenditure of the first three months of the fiscal (till June 30). Now it is conducting the Session to get the approval of the AP Legislature for the full budget.

In view of the surge in Covid cases, the government has decided to limit the budget session to a single day. Objecting to the decision to confine the budget session to a single day and that too when there was a spurt in Covid cases in the State, opposition TDP decided to boycott the session and hold mock Assembly meeting to expose the alleged failures of the YSRC government in taking Covid control measures.

Resolution on VSP issue 

Apart from passing the budget, the Assembly will also pass a resolution opposing the decision of the Centre to privatise Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. The Assembly and Council will also offer condolences to deceased Badvel MLA G Venkata Subbaiah and MLC Challa Ramakrishna Reddy