HYDERABAD: Telangana government has hiked allocations for agriculture and allied sector and some other key departments in the state Budget 2023-24 presented on Monday. The election year Budget-2023, pegged at Rs 2.90 lakh crore, has no new schemes but the Bharat Rashtra Samithi increased allocations for some of its flagship schemes.
The Budget outlay has been increased by about 13% over 2022-23. The size of last year's Budget was Rs 2.56 lakh crore.
Presenting his 4th Budget and the last of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi government in its present term, state Finance Minister T. Harish Rao announced Rs 1,000 crore for new recruitments in government departments and Rs.500 crore for providing Infrastructure facilities to all universities.
For agricultural and related departments, which the government continued to prioritise along with irrigation, he suggested spending Rs 26,831 billion.
The government has allotted Rs 6,385 crore for debt forgiveness for farmers, an increase of Rs 2,385 crore from the previous year. The budget for Rythu Bandhu, the program's flagship initiative to encourage farmers' investments at a rate of Rs. 10,000 per acre yearly, has been slightly raised to Rs. 15,075 crore. The amount allotted for farmer insurance has been increased from Rs. 1,465 billion to Rs. 1,589 billion.
In his Rs 26,885 billion budget proposal for the irrigation industry, Harish Rao reaffirmed the government's pledge to irrigate an additional 50,24,000 acres over the next two to three years, bringing the total area to 1 crore 25 lakh acres. He increased funding for power subsidies to Rs 12,000 crore from Rs 10,500 crore in 2022–23, claiming that Telangana is the only state in the nation to provide uninterrupted 24-hour quality power supply to all sectors of the economy and free power to the agriculture sector.
The allocation for Aasara pensions, which are given to several categories of recipients, has been increased by Rs 271 crore to Rs 12,000 crore for 2023–24.
The Minister suggested Rs 17,700 crore for the flagship programme Dalit Bandhu. Each of the 118 Assembly constituencies' 1,100 Dalit families would receive Rs 10 lakh over time. The budget for the department of education is set at Rs 19,093 crore. He suggested Rs 12,161 crore for the medical and health department.
The state's finance minister proposed spending Rs. 2,500 crore on R&B road maintenance and Rs. 2,000 crore on Panchayat Raj road maintenance. Additionally, he stated that beginning in April 2023, the pay rates for SERP employees will change and contract workers will be regularised.
Kerala Budget: Oppn continues to Witness Protests Over Fuel Cess
Budget proposals set up fiscal consolidation, inclusive growth: FM