AP Govt Presents 'Election Budget' For 2013 -14

In view of Assembly elections slated to be held in a year’s time, Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Anam Ramnarayana Reddy presented an Election Budget with a total outlay of Rs 1,61,348 crore for 2013-14.

The tax free and revenue surplus record budget included a non-Plan expenditure of Rs 1,01,926 crore and Plan expenditure of Rs 59,422 crore.

The Budget for 2013-14 will entail in a revenue surplus of Rs 1,023 crore and a fiscal deficit of Rs 24,487 crore, resulting in a fiscal deficit of 2.85 per cent of gross state domestic product.

The Andhra Pradesh Budget for 2012-13 was fixed at Rs 1,45,854 crore with non-Plan allocation at Rs 91,824 crore, reflecting an increase of 13.89 per cent and Plan outlay at Rs 54,030 crore, up 13.61 per cent over the current financial year.

The Finance Minister, who presented the Budget for third successive year, expressed confidence that it will infuse new energy into the strategy of inclusive growth in the state.

Ramanarayana Reddy said that the per capita income has increased from around Rs 25,000 in 2004 to Rs 77,277 crore this year, registering a growth of 300 per cent in the last nine years.

Ramanarayana Reddy sought to woo all sections in his Budget either by offering sops or enhancing the allocations to these sections.

As if to claim that the present government was farmer friendly, Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana presented special budget for his ministry but due to technical reasons read it out as policy statement after Ramanarayana Reddy’s presentation.

The main budget had all the ingredients like increasing mess charges and student scholarships and announcement of new schemes like Rajiv Deevena among others.

The State Government, which enacted the SC/ST Sub Plan by holding a two-day special session in December last year has, for the first in the country, allotted funds separately to the Sub Plan in proportion to the population of these sections.

According to the Budget proposals, the total allocation made for the SCs is Rs.8,585 crore and for the STs Rs.3,666 crore, which is 16.21 per cent and 6.92 per cent of the annual Plan size respectively.

The agricultural budget covered allocations for agriculture and eight allied sectors including horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, marketing, cooperatives, sugar, water supply and food processing.

The special agriculture budget will herald a new era in the State’s agriculture sector as it would ensure better coordination among officials of various departments and instill confidence among agriculturists with various steps for their benefits, he said.

In fact, a team led by Laxminarayana visited neighbouring Karnataka and studied the concept of agriculture budget being made there.

While Rs 6,125 crore was allocated for agriculture and allied sectors, the axe fell on the late Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s dearm scheme Jalayagnam which received Rs 13,000 crore.

The government allocated Rs 100 crore for price stabilisation Rs 2,903 crore for rainfed agricultural programme, Rs 500 crore for interest subvention, Rs 3,621 crore for power subsidy, Rs 589 crore for disaster relief fund, Rs 42 crore for construction of new ware houses and Rs 150 crore for solar pump sets.