Andhra Pradesh budget at Rs 1.45L cr

The annual plan for financial year 2011-12 was cut down to Rs 1.22 lakh crore.

Andhra Pradesh government today presented a ‘mega’ budget of Rs 1.45 lakh crore for the financial year 2012-13,projecting a fiscal deficit of Rs 20,008 crore.

The annual plan for financial year 2011-12,which was initially pegged at Rs 1.28 lakh crore,was cut down to Rs 1.22 lakh crore as per the revised estimates presented in the Assembly.

State Finance Minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy has enhanced allocations to all sectors by varying percentages for the next fiscal though the state could not actually achieve the targets fixed in the current year’s budget.

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“Of the total expenditure proposed,Rs 91,824 crore will be under non-plan and Rs 54,030 crore will be plan expenditure,” Ramanarayana said.

Though the government had projected a revenue surplus of Rs 3,826 crore in the 2011-12 budget,revised estimates brought the figure down at Rs 780 crore and the fiscal deficit at Rs 17,784 crore.

The revenue receipts,barring the state’s share of Central taxes,showed a negative trend as per the revised estimates but the finance minister projected an overall increase of Rs 24,000 crore for 2012-13.

No new scheme has been announced in the budget as such but the ones announced by Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy during the course of the year; like zero-interest loans to farmers and women self-help groups,supply of rice at Re 1-a-kg etc were listed out by Ramnarayana in his budget speech.

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Interestingly,major irrigation department which has been allocated a lion’s share since 2005 did not get any rise for the next year.

Alike the current year,the department will get only Rs 15,010 crore in 2012-13 also,even as the government claimed to have spent an aggregate of Rs 71,292 crore on major irrigation projects since 2004-05 till January 2012.