Appropriation Bill gets thumbs up from all but TDP

HYDERABAD: Telangana state assembly on Friday passed its first Appropriation Bill for Rs 1,00,600 crore unopposed. While Congress, BJP, MIM, CPI and CPM supported the bill, TDP staged a walk out in protest against denial of an opportunity to its member, Revanth Reddy, to speak on the bill.
Interestingly, Congress, which had issued whip to its members on Thursday, withdrew it after chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao sought support from all the parties for clearing the bill unanimously since it was the first budget in the newly-formed state.
The chief minister said of the total Rs 1,00,600 crore budget estimations (both plan and non-plan and other grants), the reserves with the state government was Rs 2,544 crore as on June 2. Under State Owned Tax Revenue (SOTR) it expected to net an amount of Rs 35,378 crore through taxes, while State Owned Revenue (non-taxes) was estimated at Rs 13,242 crore. The estimated central grants were Rs 21,720 crore and capital grants were expected to be Rs 18,837 crore.
He said though there was a scope to utilize Rs 5,000 crore from Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) from Reserve Bank of India, they had not utilized it for better financial management and would be used to meet the farm loan waiver obligations and other purposes in the future.
“After formation of Telangana, the state government had earned Rs 25,947 crore revenue in the past six months. Of which, Rs 15,101 crore had come from tax revenues like registration, excise and commercial taxes and Rs 1,274 crore from non tax revenues like mines and sand. It also got Rs 3,769 crore from the central taxes and Rs 2,514 crore from central grants. Budget was prepared based on these figures,” the chief minister said.
He said that allocations for completing some projects might not figure in the budget as they would be completed in the next four years. There would be more clarity on some schemes as the Centre’s assistances and policies on various schemes like water grid would be known after few months.
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured of Central’s support for water grid programme. And the estimated cost would be about Rs 30,000 to Rs 35,000 crore. Since it requires financial help, a separate corporation was floated for executing the project, he said.
The state government would come up with fresh budget for 2015-16 in three months without waiting for March, 2015 and by that time there would be more clarity on schemes, he said.
Leader of the opposition Jana Reddy said though they disagree with the government on some issues, they would support the bill. He said earlier when the united state projected Rs 42,000 crore revenue towards planned budget for 12 months, how the state government projected Rs 48,000 crore for just 10 months and 10 districts of Telangana. He also said in the just four months, how the state government was going to earn Rs 6,500 crore towards auctioning of government land and how they would spend thousands of crores for Mission Kakatiya aimed at conserving and restoring lakes in the short period. He also there was no guarantee that the government would earn Rs 18,000 to Rs 20,000 crore revenue in the next four months. However, he declared his party’s support for the bill.
MIM floor leader Akbaruddin said it would not be correct to expect results from the state government in just five months. . BJP leader K Laxman said that the party would support the bill for ‘Bangaru Telangana’ and urged the state government to fulfill the promises it made to the people during the elections.