Telangana summons top officials to tackle Budget blues
The government had presented the budget with an outlay of Rs 1.15 lakh crore
HYDERABAD: With Budget targets going haywire and the state’s financial condition deteriorating, the Telangana state government is ready to press the panic button.
It has convened an emergency meeting of top-ranking officials of all departments on Tuesday to discuss measures to be taken to put the budget back on track and improve revenue collections.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is expected to leave for New Delhi on Monday evening though it was yet to be confirmed.
Though the visit is to take part in a Niti Aayog meeting, the CM is learnt to have sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appointment on Tuesday and seek an increase in the FRBM borrowing limit from 3 per cent to 3.5 per cent to tide away the financial crisis. CMO sources said that the PMO is yet to respond.
With just five more months left this fiscal, the TS government could spend only Rs 44,000 crore under plan and non-plan expenditure against the budget target of Rs 60,000 crore due to lack of funds. Even of this, over Rs 10,000 crore was mobilised through auction of bonds with RBI.
Finance special secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao has sent a circular to all departments informing about the emergency meeting on October 27. The circular sought mandatory presence of principal secretaries and secretaries of every department with all updated financial statements.
The government had presented the budget with an outlay of Rs 1.15 lakh crore. It should have spent 60 per cent of this so far but hasn’t been able to meet even 50 per cent target.
This is because revenue collections fell short by Rs 10,000 crore. While the government expected to get Rs 6,000 crore from the Centre towards its share in various Central-sponsored schemes, it received only Rs 5,000 crore.