Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy on Monday presented a massive ₹1.83 lakh crore vote-on-account budget for the financial year 2014-15 in the Legislative Assembly amidst protests.
This outlay is higher by 13.50 per cent over last year’s budget and includes ₹1,15,179 crore towards non-Plan (up 13 per cent) and ₹67,950 crore for Plan expenditure (up 14.35 per cent) leaving a revenue surplus of ₹474 crore and fiscal deficit of ₹25,402 crore.
“The fiscal deficit is 2.6 per cent of gross state domestic product and is well within the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act,” the Finance Minister said. As the Finance Minister began his speech, it was disrupted by members from Telangana forcing him to cut short his 32-page speech and close it by reading out the last few paragraphs.
Achievements Later, interacting with newspersons, the Finance Minister, who presented his fourth budget, glossed over the achievements of the Government over the last decade, and said the per capita income has gone up from ₹24,143 in 2004-05 to ₹89,200 in 2013-14 against the national average of ₹74,920.
Refuting the contention of the Opposition that the State bypassed the customary Governor’s address, he said since it was a vote-on-account, this was not necessary. He said the matter was also clarified from the Lok Sabha secretariat.
Debt scenario The State debt is estimated at ₹1,52,476 crore as on 2013-14.
The growth matrices of various sectors of economy have been quite satisfactory during the recent past. In spite of unfavourable conditions, during 2012-13 the growth rate was 5.78 per cent (national growth rate at 4.47 per cent). The agriculture and services sector grew at 7.48 per cent and 7.75 per cent, respectively. However, the performance of the industrial sector was not very encouraging, he said.