Hyderabad: The state government will present a revenue-surplus Budget for 2021-22 without imposing any new tax or tinkering with existing rates, official sources in the finance department said on Monday.
Finance minister T. Harish Rao will present Budget 2021-22 in the Assembly on March 18. Though the state government's revenue earnings nosedived in 2020-21 due to the pandemic-related lockdown, the government has decided to go for a revenue-surplus budget based on optimism that the economy is limping back to normalcy since the beginning of 2021.
Telangana state continues to be a 'revenue surplus' since the formation of the state in 2014. The new Budget size is expected to be between Rs 1.85 lakh crore and Rs 2 lakh crore, which will be the highest-ever for Telangana state against the Rs 1.82 lakh crore budget in 2020-21.
The state government is relying heavily on its own tax revenues and borrowings to meet budgetary targets in 2021-22 rather than depending on central government funds. Funds from the Centre towards tax devolution and other grants witnessed a decline during the past two years.
The government pinned its hopes on GST and VAT to mop up revenues in the new fiscal. Last year (2019-20), the government earned Rs 47,000 crore through GST and VAT. This year (2020-21), it has already netted Rs 46,000 crore till February-end and revenues are expected to cross the Rs 50,000 crore mark for the first time this fiscal (by end March 2021).
During the lockdown period from April-June 2020, the earnings through GST and VAT touched a low of Rs3,000 crore per month. However, the situation improved from September 2020. In November 2020, the government earned Rs 6,876 crore, which was the highest-ever growth rate of 77 per cent.
In December 2020, another Rs 5,812 crore was earned. In January 2021, these earnings were of Rs 5,223 crore and Rs 5,093 crore in February. This is expected to rise further by this March-end as the government had roped in 400 special teams to recover GST, VAT dues from defaulters to realise the cent per cent collection target.
