2018-19 state budget very crucial for Telangana government

Hyderabad: In spite of growth in revenue, the 2018-19 state budget would turn out to be very crucial and critical for the Telangana State government as it would an election one.

As per the election schedule, the government would get a chance to present the budget, but would have no time to implement the proposals. Present government commitments had reached to about Rs 40,000 crore by way of pending bills, subsidies, contribution to CSS and others.

Officials said clearing pending bills might not be possible in the current year and that could happen only next year. Besides, the government had to provide additional provision for farm subsidy of at least Rs 5,000 crore.

Commitments in the current financial year would affect the next budget. Generally, during an election year, State governments tended to spend funds liberally on several present and new schemes and get political mileage.

At present, pending bills had reached about Rs 25,000-Rs 30,000 crore. In the present financial conditions, the state government was not in a position to clear the bills this fiscal. By the next year, the flagship programme would come to near completion.

The government also had to clear the Mission Bhagiratha bills in addition to the pending ones. Officials said that if the Government cleared only Mission Bhagiratha bills, others too would have to be cleared. The state had borne 20 per cent of the Mission Bhagiratha project cost from its own funds.

It had to give about Rs 5,000 crore as subsidy to Discoms. For the fee reimbursement, it had to provide about Rs 2,500 crore. The government did not release its share in Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) this year. To get balance funds of about Rs 5,000 crore for these schemes, it would have to release about Rs 2,000 crore this year itself.  Officials said it was not possible to spend Rs 5,000 crore and it would be carried forward to next year. This would be an additional burden on the state exchequer in addition as it would have to get matching grants for CSS next year.

The State government had announced Rs 1,000 crore each for BC and MBC welfare, though no spending was done this year and would have to be done during the election year.

The fertiliser subsidy scheme would require setting aside at least Rs 5,000 crore in the budget. The officials said that in the present situation, there was little scope for introduction of new schemes in the next budget.