Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Y Ramakrishnudu presented an interim (vote-on-account) budget for 2019-20 in the State Assembly on Tuesday, with emphasis on welfare schemes.

The minister presented the Rs 2,26,117.53 crore-budget, with a deficit of Rs 32,390.68 crores. The revenue expenditure amounted to Rs 1,80,369.33 crore and the capital expenditure Rs 29,596.33 crores.

In the budget, a new scheme for farmers - Annadata Sukhibhava, which literally means "Let the food-giver be blessed" - was introduced with an allocation of Rs 5,000 crores. It envisages transferring a certain amount of money into the accounts of farmers, along the lines of the scheme announced in the Union Budget - but the details would have to be worked out yet.

Pensions for the aged and widows have been enhanced from the present Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000, with an allocation of Rs 10,401 crores. Allowances for the educated unemployed youth under the "Yuvanestam" scheme have been enhanced from Rs 1,000 per month to Rs 2,000, with an allocation of Rs 1,200 crores. The allocation for Anna canteens where meals are provided for Rs 5 has been pegged at Rs 300 crores.

For another major welfare scheme - Pasupu-kumkuma - an allocation of Rs 8,604 crores was recently made by the state government in the budget. An additional financial assistance of Rs 10,000 would be given to each member of the women's self-help groups in the State in three instalments during the next three months.

Several new BC corporations were announced in the budget and also a few for the upper castes such as Kshatriyas. For the Kapu corporation an allocation of Rs 1,000 crores was made, for the BC Corporation Rs 3,000 crores, for the Brahmin Corporation Rs 100 crores, for the Kshatriya Corporation Rs 50 crores and for the Vysya Corporation Rs 50 crores.

For industries, an allocation of Rs 4,114.92 crores was made, with an additional allocation of Rs 400 crores for MSMEs, and for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA) Rs 1,000 crores. An allocation of Rs 1,006.81 crores was made for the IT and communications sector. For market intervention a fund of Rs 1,000 crores was set apart.

Farm loan waiver

The Finance Minister informed the House that the ruling party, Telugu Desam Party, had promised in 2014 that farm loans would be waived off in the State and "true to our promise we spent Rs 16,000 crores for the purpose since 2014. The remaining two instalments (roughly Rs 8,000 crores) would be adjusted soon in the coming weeks. The total amount would be roughly Rs 24,000 crores."

The minister said the TDP Government had assumed office in 2014, after the bifurcation of the State, in very trying circumstances and "even though the Central assistance has been grossly inadequate we have fulfilled all our promises to the people and we intend to do so in future."

However, the YSR Congress Party, the main opposition party in the State, dismissed it as an election budget with cooked-up figures. Pardhasaradhi, the party spokesman, said the TDP had let down the people. "The TDP promised total farm loan waiver to the extent of Rs 80,000 crores in 2014 and then subsequently scaled it down to only Rs 24,000 crores and till now only Rs 16,000 crores has been spent on the scheme. The figures given by the Finance Minister himself speak for themselves. Nothing more need be said," he commented.

Finance Minister Ramakrishnudu said that the TDP Government had spent more than Rs 81,500 crores on agriculture during the past four years and nine months and it showed the importance his Government gave to agriculture. However, he did not specify the allocation in the current budget.

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