In its last budget before the general elections, Congress Government in Andhra Pradesh has gone all out to woo the weaker sections as it became the first State to have separate sub-plans for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes with legal guarantee that the allocated amount will be spent only under their respective heads and will not be returned unspent.
The Rs 1.61 lakh crore (approximately Rs 1600 billion) budget was on Monday presented in the Assembly by Finance Minister A Ramanarayana Reddy with a revenue surplus of Rs 10,023 crore and fiscal deficit of Rs 24,487 crore. The size of the budget was considerably higher than last year’s 1.46 lakh crore.
Another unique feature of this year’s budget was a separate Agriculture action plan covering agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, sericulture, forest, co-operation, irrigation, food processing and sugar departments.
The agriculture sub-plan with a total allocation of 25,962 crore was presented by Agriculture Minister Kanna lakshmi Narayana. However, his presentation was boycotted by the Opposition Telugu Desam members alleging that the Government had cheated the farmers and there was nothing new in the action plan.
An amount of Rs 8,585 crore was allocated for the SC sub-plan in the plan budget, 16.21 per cent of the annual plan size making it proportionate to the SC population in the State.
Similarly, an amount of Rs 3,666 crore or 6.92 per cent of the annual plan was allocated for the Scheduled Tribes sub-plan, a proportional share of their population.
It translate the historic legislation AP SCSP and TSP (planning allocation and utilisation of financial resources) bill, 2012 in to appropriate and meaningful allocation for them, the Finance
Minister said.
The bill passed by the Assembly in December 12 has mandated a special focus on SCs and STs and given a legal guarantee that the allocated amount will be spent on their welfare. The act also guarantees that any money which remains unspent will be reallocated to their welfare in the next budget.
The move was being seen as a last ditch effort to woo Dalits who were deserting Congress to gravitate towards YSR Congress Party and Telugu Desam.
A similar attempt has been made to woo the minorities, though at a much smaller scale. The budget for minorities welfare has been more than doubled to Rs 1,027 core from Rs 488 crore provided last year. However, this allocation was far less than the proportional share of minorities, who constitute 12 per cent of the population.
The demand of the Muslim minority leader for a separate sub-plan on the lines of SCs and STs has also been overlooked. Minorities complain that only 70 per cent of their allocated budget last year was spent.
“The Government is according priority to promote education amongst minority children, particularly the girl children to accelerate development of minorities,” Anam Ramanarayana Reddy said.
The fiscal deficit of the State was estimated at Rs 24,487 crore, or 2.85 per cent of the GSDP, compared to 2.35 per cent last year.