Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka. File. | Photo Credit: ANI
Telangana Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka has said that the Government has dispensed with wasteful expenditure with an aim to maintain fiscal discipline and give primacy to people’s welfare in the budget.
The State is in a dire economic condition and the Government has already bared the facts before the people through a white paper. “Even a prosperous State like ours has been reduced to a begging bowl due to misdeeds of earlier rulers,” he said introducing the vote on account budget for the financial year 2024-25 in the Assembly on Saturday.
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The State’s economy suffered tremendously as the previous Government frittered it on non-essential activities instead of spending on the infrastructure development. The Government’s credibility suffered as it defaulted in clearing the bills for the expenditure it incurred. “The previous Government’s budget was far from reality. It had inflated receipts and created an illusion that huge funds are being provided for different schemes,” he said.
For instance, ₹17,700 crore was allocated for Dalit Bandhu in the fiscal 2021-22, but not a single rupee was released. According to the accounts of the Comptroller and Audit General of India for the same year, ₹4,874 crore allotted for SC welfare was not spent and same was the case with ₹1,437 crore allotted for the BC development. Similary, ₹297 crore out of the ₹1,067 crore was spent for interest free loans between 2014-15 and 2022-23.
The Congress Government had estimated the receipts realistically and made allocations accordingly. “The misdeeds and mistakes of the past regime cannot dampen our spirit and cannot deter us from our goals,” he said. On the economic front, the Gross State Domestic Product showed an increase in current prices from ₹13.02 lakh crore to ₹14.49 lakh crore.
The economic growth rate however showed a downward trend declining from 14.7% to 11.3% during the period. The growth rate at the national level showed a sharper decline falling from 16.1% to 8.9%. Consequently, Telangana’s growth rate was higher by 2.4 percentage points compared to th country’s GDP growth.
The economic growth rate in the State at constant prices declined by one percentage point to 6.5 in 2023-24 from 7.5 in the previous year whereas there was marginal increase in growth by 0.1% at the national level. The differing growth rates at current and constant prices between Telangana and the country suggested a higher rate of inflation in the State compared to the national average.
This was further evidenced by higher consumer price index in Telangana which stood at 6.65% in December 2023 placing the State fifth in the country in terms of inflation rate as compared with the national average of 5.69 per cent. Referring to safe drinking water supply, he said it was not fully available in the rural areas despite the previous Government’s tall claims of implementing Mission Bhagiratha with a cost of ₹35,752 crore for the purpose.
“The Central Government also took exceptions to the previous Government’s claims on providing safe drinking water to 100 per cent villages,” he recalled. The past Government ignored several key issues in implementing Mission Bhagiratha and went ahead benefitting contractors not people. “There is a need to rectify the mistakes in Mission Bhagiratha and use it optimally to avoid huge loss to public money,” Mr. Vikramarka said.
