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The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday presented the last full annual Budget of its term by proposing an increase of 15.8 per cent in the overall expenditure to Rs 161,731.82 crore for 2013-14, as compared with the revised estimates of Rs 139,644.40 crore in the current year.
With the elections a year away, the government has managed to give a 20 per cent rise in spending on social sectors, including welfare, while keeping the non-Plan expenditure lower at 13.34 per cent to Rs 101,926.2 crore and proposing an 18.9 per cent rise in Plan expenditure to Rs 59,422.48 crore.
"I am confident that the Budget 2013-14 will infuse new energy to the strategy of inclusive growth of the state. It will usher in an era of accelerated growth of critical infrastructure in the economy and of human development indicators of all sections of the people of the state," said state finance minister Anam Ramanarayana Reddy. The minister proposed a revenue surplus of Rs 1,023 crore.
Fiscal deficit at 2.85%
According to him, the fiscal deficit for 2013-14 is expected at Rs 24,487 crore, 2.85 per cent of the gross state domestic product (GSDP), as compared with the estimated fiscal deficit of 2.86 per cent in the current year. No new taxes find mention, a practice of de-linking any move of tweaking them from the Budget proposals followed by the successive governments. It also did not announce any new schemes.
Increase in the Budget size by over 25 per cent has become a thing of past as witnessed in 2009 when it touched the Rs 1-lakh crore mark on the back of 20-30 per cent rise in state revenues. For FY14, the government has proposed a 15.76 per cent increase in own tax revenues as compared with over 18 per cent in the current year.
Revenue receipts, including the share of central taxes and non-tax revenues, however, are estimated to grow at 16.66 per cent to Rs 1.28 lakh crore from Rs 1.09 lakh crore (revised estimate) for the current year.
The government has proposed to raise Rs 33,229 crore debt to meet the budgetary expenditure of which, it would spend Rs 8,626.68 crore on loan repayment. The total public debt outstanding is estimated to go up to Rs 1.80 lakh crore, which is 20.91 per cent of the GSDP in 2013-14.
The social services sector saw the single biggest jump of 29.8 per cent in Plan outlay to Rs 22,578.67 crore, accounting for 43 per cent of Rs 52,955.29 crore. Irrigation, which used to be almost 40 per cent, now stands at Rs 13,792 crore with just 2 per cent increase over the current Plan outlay. The next big increase of 15.6 per cent in the Plan outlay has gone for agriculture and allied sectors to Rs 9,056 crore from the revised estimate of Rs 7,833 crore.
Sectorwise allocations
In sectorwise allocations, both Plan and non-Plan expenditure, and social welfare department, which predominately deals with hostels and education scholarships, have received 46.58 per cent increase to Rs 11,311.85 crore as compared with Rs 7,717.43 crore in the current year. The power sector is receiving Rs 7,117 crore next year from Rs 6,636 crore in the current year - almost all of this goes to subsidy and administrative expenditure as it has got just Rs 574.96 crore in the Plan outlay.
The government has increased the allocation to general education by 14.3 per cent to Rs 19,842 crore (the second largest department after irrigation in terms of overall expenditure), 27.98 per cent increase to technical education (Rs 1,264 crore), 25 per cent increase to industries and minerals (Rs 1,119.72 crore) and 16 per cent rise to roads and transport department (Rs 5,310 crore), among others.
The GSDP for the current year has been estimated at Rs 4,26,470 crore (constant prices), a growth of 5.29 per cent over the previous year, according to the minister.
It may be recalled that the advance estimates pegged the lowest-ever growth of 0.73 per cent in industrial output for the current year as compared with 7.71 per cent last year primarily due to the power crisis. The services sector growth has also come down to 8.45 per cent from 10.53 per cent last year as advance estimates suggest.
