VIJAYAWADA

 Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath on Friday presented the Budget 2022-23 with an outlay of Rs 2.56 lakh crore. Rajendranath, who presented the Budget in the State Assembly amid frequent interruptions by Opposition TDP members, pegged revenue expenditure at Rs 2,08,261 crore and capital expenditure at Rs 47,996 crore. The revenue deficit is estimated at around Rs 17,036 crore and the fiscal deficit at around Rs 48,724 crore.

“The fiscal deficit will be around 3.64 percent of the GSDP, whereas the revenue deficit will be around 1.27% of the GSDP,” the Finance Minister said.

A major part of the allocations went to welfare departments and for implementing Navaratnalu, the flagship schemes of the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government. A whopping Rs 18,000 crore was allocated for the YSR Pension Kanuka scheme.

There was a jump in allocations to sub-plans with the SC sub-plan getting an allocation of Rs 18,518 crore as against Rs 13,835 crore in last year’s Budget. Similarly, the BC sub-plan got an allocation of Rs 29,143 crore as against Rs 28,238 crore allocation in the last Budget. For economically backward classes too, the allocation jumped to Rs 6,639 crore from the previous year’s allocation of Rs 3,743 crore.

The government had also proposed the creation of a Rs 350 crore Special Development Package Fund, placing Rs 2 crore at the disposal of each MLA to implement socio-economic development programmes at the constituency level.