Hyderabad: Infrastructure development in both urban and rural areas received a generous allocation in the annual state budget presented by finance minister T Harish Rao in the Assembly on Thursday.
“In the financial year 2021-22, I am proposing total expenditure of Rs.2,30,825.96 crore. Of this, revenue expenditure is Rs.1,69,383.44 crore and capital expenditure is Rs.29,046.77 crore. Revenue surplus in the Budget is estimated at Rs.6,743.50 crore and the estimated fiscal deficit is Rs. 45,509.60 crore”, said T Harish Rao here on Thursday.
In the 2.3 lakh crore budget presented by the finance minister, major allocations have been made towards roads, transport, power, irrigation and other infrastructure development projects.
For example, for the capital city, Rs. 200 crore were allotted for Musi river rejuvenation, Rs.1000 crore for Hyderabad metro rail and another Rs.250 crore for providing drinking water in new colonies within ORR. Further, Rs. 250 crore are specifically allocated for the development of Warangal municipal corporation.
Apart from this, Rao allotted Rs. 4,000 crore for a new proposed educational scheme that aims to upgrade and modernize the education sector in the State comprehensively.
An amount of Rs.29,271 crore is proposed for panchayat raj and rural development departments, while a massive Rs. 360 crore has been allotted for IT sector.
Keeping in mind the necessity of health infrastructure, the state government increased the health budget from Rs 6,186 in 2020-21 to Rs 6,295 in 2021-22.
In his budget presentation, Harish Rao noted that the state government took a slew of measures to mitigate the adverse effects caused by COVID-19.
“The improvements in power supply, increase in irrigated area as a result of new projects and implementation of many development and welfare schemes like Rythu Bhandu, distribution of sheep, supply of fish seedlings to fishermen helped the primary sector recorded a growth of 17.7 per cent in 2020-21. The growth rate of secondary and services sectors recorded -5.2 per cent and -1.9 per cent respectively,” Rao said.
As compared with the national GDP growth, State’s GSDP growth is much better, he added. The growth of GSDP declined significantly from 13.5 per cent in 2019-20 to 1.3 per cent in 2020-21, as against the national GDP growth declined from 7.8 per cent to -3.8 per cent in the same period.