Hyderabad: The Telangana government’s proposal of a Rs 2 lakh crore budget for FY2019-20 looks ambitious in view of its dismal performance in FY2018-19 and the current financial year’s first quarter. A full-fledged Budget is to be presented next month.
Revenue-earning departments are worried by the target fixed by the government to boost budget figures.
Fresh after winning elections in December, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao presented a vote-on-account budget on February 22 with an outlay of Rs 1,82,017 crores for FY2019-20. He is said to have inst-ructed officials to prepare budget estimates with a revised outlay of Rs 2 lakh crore. But the decline in Central grants for the first quarter of the current financial year has caused concern.
During the first quarter of FY 2018-19, the Centre released Rs 2,252 crores but in the first quarter a year later, the Centre released Rs 1,351.3 crores for various schemes.
Decrease in Central tax collection may hit state’s capex expenditure
Finance department sources revealed that the shortfall was due to the decrease in Central tax collection across the country. As a result the share of tax devolution and allocation of grants for Centrally-sponsored schemes to all states have fallen considerably.
The Comptroller and Audit General’s unaudited provisional figures indicated that the projected revenue receipts were Rs 1,67,859 crore in FY 2018-19; the actual revenue receipts were Rs 1,28,435 crore; and actual expenditure was Rs 1,19,723 crore.
With Central grants declining and the CM’s promise to enhance the Asara schemes and others, officials say welfare expenditure will double in the current year, which will affect capital expenditure.
Though the government projected about Rs 6,000 crore surplus in the interim budget, the CAG figures say that in the first quarter the expected revenue receipts of Rs 25,341 crore fell short at Rs 19,949 crore.
In the first quarter there was a deficit of Rs 944 crore in actual estimates of revenue receipts. It adds up to a worrying picture.
In FY 2018 -19, the government achieved 77.43 per cent of targeted revenue receipts. It estimated a revenue of Rs 1,30,975 crore but the actual receipts are Rs 1,01,420 crore, which is less than around two per cent when compared with FY 2017-18.
