The Finance department is facing a tough time in mobilising resources to meet the financial commitments made by the government even as the latter has announced yet another scheme for providing financial assistance of ₹1 lakh each to eligible beneficiaries belonging to minority communities.
The announcement made by Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao comes at a time when the department is scrambling for funds to meet the commitments in the form of welfare schemes, especially during the election year. The government’s flagship scheme for farmers, Rythu Bandhu, was given a budgetary allocation of little over ₹15,000 crore in the current fiscal and another major scheme Dalit Bandhu received ₹17,700 crore while the recently announced Gruha Lakshmi scheme envisaging financial assistance of ₹3 lakh each to poor families for construction of own houses involves an estimated ₹7,350 crore. The government has, so far, given administrative sanction for ₹500 crore for Gruha Lakshmi.
The total revenue receipts of the State for the first two months of the financial year 2023-24, however, were not up to the expectations and remained at 10.36% – ₹22,427 crore at the end of May against ₹2.16 lakh crore estimated for the financial year 2023-24. Tax revenue during the first two months too remained at ₹20,097 crore, 13.18% of the ₹1.52 lakh crore projected for the fiscal, according to the provisional date submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
The financial situation could be assessed from the fact that the State availed financial accommodation instruments like special drawing facility for an amount of ₹757.81 crore on all 31 days in May, and ways and means advances of ₹1,404.37 crore for 29 days. The State went for overdraft of ₹436.01 crore for nine days during the month.
On the expenditure front, the government is facing a tough time in meeting commitments on account of interest payments for which the budgetary allocation of ₹22,407 crore has been made for the current fiscal. The State’s total outstanding liabilities at the end of previous financial year crossed ₹3.66 lakh crore (budget estimates), according to a written reply tabled by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Replying to a query by BRS MP Nama Nageswara Rao, she said Telangana government’s outstanding liabilities grew from ₹1.9 lakh crore in 2018-19 to ₹3.66 lakh crore by the end of fiscal year 2022-23. The Union Minister, however, did not give details of borrowings by the State-run corporations and public sector undertakings. It was against this background that the government is struggling to raise finances to meet commitments in the election year amid restrictions imposed by the Union Finance Ministry on the State’s market borrowings.
