All inclusive budget

Hyderabad : Laying special emphasis on agriculture, the state government has presented an ‘inclusive’ budget for 2024-25 with an outlay of whopping Rs 2.91 lakh crore.

The Congress government has allocated Rs 72,000 crore to agriculture, comprising 25 per cent of the total budget outlay. Apart from allocating substantial funds for the welfare, the government also announced three new schemes of Rs 12,000 crore financial assistance to farm labourers, Rs 500 bonus for paddy and Indira Life Insurance Scheme up to Rs 10 lakh for women groups.

Finance Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said despite facing a lot of financial challenges due to increased debt burden and slowdown in the tax collections, for the first time the government has decided to promote the farm sector and sustain all the existing welfare schemes in the budget with a proposal of Rs 2.20 lakh crore revenue receipts and Rs 33,487 crore capital expenditure.

He said to meet the financial requirements to implement all the schemes, the government has increased the target of tax revenues to Rs 1.38 lakh crore and the non-tax revenues to Rs 35,200 crore.

Farm loan waiver, farm labourer welfare, Rythu Bharosa, agri insurance, bonus for paddy, Rythu Nestham, promotion of horticulture and animal husbandry would be implemented by utilizing the funds of more than Rs 72,000 crore in the budget, he said.

The minister said while country’s economy had recorded an average growth rate of 7.6 per cent, Telangana recorded a growth rate of 7.4 per cent during the same period which indicates that it was on the lower side. Hence it had decided to lay greater emphasis on agriculture.

All the main sectors like Education, Health, Irrigation, Women and Child Development, Municipal Administration, Panchayat Raj and Rural Development have been provided allocations in tune with the state government’s priorities. The budget also gave priority to the welfare sector, he said, adding that the SC, ST, BC and minority welfare wings got huge allocations.

Bhatti Vikramarka said the six guarantees, including Indiramma houses would be implemented and would achieve the targets during the current financial year. An amount of Rs 20,000 crore will be provided to promote each member of the self-help groups as ‘crorepati’ under Indira Mahila Shakti scheme.

He said the government will also introduce reforms in all revenue generating wings and stabilise the state financial position by increasing the tax and non-tax revenues.

The Finance Minister said that special emphasis on strengthening the policing system to curb the growing cyber-crime and drug menace would also be given high priority by allocating necessary funds.