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The Andhra Pradesh government will clear the salary bill of its employees amounting to Rs 2,500 crore for March on Thursday after it secured Rs 4,400 crore funds under various heads from the Centre on the last day of the financial year.
As the government had already drawn around Rs 6,000 crore excess liquidity from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under the overdraft and the ways and means facilities, the last minute release by the Union finance ministry has come in handy for the state.
While Minister of State for Science and Technology, YS Chowdary, yesterday stated in Delhi that the state had received around Rs 8,300 crore before the end of the financial year owing to their last minute efforts, officials, however, estimated the net receipts at Rs 4,400 crore here.
According to AP officials, the state would continue to depend on the overdraft facility for some more time, as any fund coming to the state would first be adjusted towards the overdraft by the RBI. The government employees are normally paid on the first of every month, and that is now getting delayed by one day.
Revenue deficit shot up to Rs 14,000 crore during 2014-15 from the original estimate of a little over Rs 6,000 crore, sending the state finances somewhat out of control. However the officials say the state government has used the situation to bring pressure on the Centre to get more funds. Despite the high revenue-expenditure gap the government had cleared all the pending bills while borrowing the short term funds using the overdraft facility.
The funds received by the state yesterday include Rs 1,000 crore meant for the capital city construction and Rs 1,800 crore for meeting the revenue deficit as promised in the AP Reorganisation Bill, according to the officials.
The state government recently presented the annual Budget for 2015-16 proposing an overall expenditure of Rs 1.13-lakh crore and with a revenue deficit of Rs 7, 000 crore.
