As Andhra Pradesh Assembly Budget sessions are set to begin on Monday, all eyes are on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to see if he will be able to strike a balance between welfare schemes and development in the upcoming Budget.
Citing a recent report of State’s finances released by NITI Aayog for the period between 2018-19 to 2022-23, Naidu recently said the poor finances inherited by the NDA government due to financial `mismanagement’ of previous YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) fuelled a notion that the NDA government might prefer to defer implementation of some promises made under the ‘Super Six’.
Compulsion
The State exchequer is undoubtedly under pressure and the main challenge is to ensure adequate flow of funds for new capital at Amaravati and Polavaram multipurpose irrigation project while providing for expenditure on the welfare schemes.
Though the government has been able to secure a loan of ₹15,000 crore for Amaravati from multilateral agencies, it still needs to explore new avenues for wealth creation and to augment revenue resources as tenders have already been called for construction works worth over ₹42,000 crore.
After almost eight months since coming to power, the government is yet to implement some of the populist welfare schemes promised before elections under the `Super Six’ set of programmes including free travel for women in State-run RTC buses, payment of ₹20,000 to each farmer under the ‘Annadata Sukhibhava’ scheme, disbursal of ₹15,000 to women under the ‘Thalliki Vandanam’ (for sending children to schools) scheme and an unemployment allowance of ₹3,000 for jobless youth.
The recent floods, which caused heavy damage to crops, property, and physical infrastructure in the State, also imposed unexpected financial stress on the State exchequer.
Further, as per the Budget 25-26, Andhra Pradesh will get about ₹38,000 crore from the Centre as part government of India’s share in the entrally sponsored projects. The State government needs to allocate its share for implementation of the Central schemes which might be to the tune of about ₹25,000 crore depending on the nature of the scheme.
According to sources, the upcoming Budget is likely to peg the total expenditure in the range of ₹3.15 lakh crore – ₹3.25 lakh crore. In his first Budget, presented in November last year, Finance Minister Payyavula Kesav pegged the outlay for the year 2024-25 at ₹2.94 lakh crore.
