Telangana Finance Minister Eatala Rajender today presented a budget with an outlay of ₹1,30,415 crore for the financial year 2016-17 with bulk of allocations going for the irrigation sector. The budget size last year was ₹1,15,000 crore.

A little less than one-third of the planned expenditure of ₹67,631 crore has been allocated for the irrigation sector for spending on the government’s flagship programmes Mission Bhagiratha and Mission Kakatiya.

“We have allotted ₹26,657 crore for the sector that seeks to revive 46,000 tanks and provide drinking water to all households in 12 municipalities and 6,100 villages,” Rajender has said.

He said the government would seek Hudco loans to construct two lakh two-bedroom houses this financial year. The fiscal deficit is estimated to be at ₹23,467 crore, which is 3.5 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).

Special Fund The budget announced a ₹4,675 crore Special Development Fund, which is basically aimed at giving money to ministers and MLAs to take up impromptu developmental works, on the lines of a Central scheme.

Later, addressing a press conference, the Finance Minister said the government hoped to secure financial support from relevant institutions to bridge the gap well within the FRBM limits. He, however, did not indicate the quantum of loan that the government seeks to secure.

Meanwhile, the revised estimates have put the expenditure in 2015-16 at ₹1,00,062 crore, or only 86 per cent of the budgeted allocations in the previous financial year.

“This is largely due to lower Plan transfers from the Centre and poorer proceeds from the sale of land. There are VAT dues of ₹4,000 crore we are yet to collect,” he said.

Revenue surplus For the current financial year, the Finance Minister put the revenue surplus at ₹3,718 crore. He pegged the State’s own revenue receipts at ₹72,412 crore (₹54,256 crore last year) and Central transfers at ₹28,512 crore (₹25,223 crore).

Despite poor performance in the primary sector, the State has recorded one of the highest per capita incomes in the country. As against the national average of ₹93,231, the per capita income in the State is ₹1,43,023 in 2015-16.

The other prominent allocations in the budget include: Agriculture and allied sectors — ₹6,759 crore; medical and health sector - ₹5,967 crore; Education - ₹10,738 crore; SC & ST welfare - ₹10,874 crore; Aasara pensions - ₹4,693 crore and Kalyana Lakshmi - ₹738 crore.

The Finance Minister proposed to set up a ₹100-crore fund for the welfare of Brahmin community in the financial year.

Surveillance system The minister allocated ₹225 crore to establish a city wide CCTV surveillance network. The government earlier indicated that it would install 1,00,000 CCTV cameras across the city and would invest on Big Data analytics solutions to analyse the data.

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