The Finance department is facing a tough time in mobilising resources to meet the financial commitments made by the government even as the latter has announced yet another scheme for providing financial assistance of ₹1 lakh each to eligible beneficiaries belonging to minority communities.
The announcement made by Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao comes at a time when the department is scrambling for funds to meet the commitments in the form of welfare schemes, especially during the election year. The government’s flagship scheme for farmers, Rythu Bandhu, was given a budgetary allocation of little over ₹15,000 crore in the current fiscal and another major scheme Dalit Bandhu received ₹17,700 crore while the recently announced Gruha Lakshmi scheme envisaging financial assistance of ₹3 lakh each to poor families for construction of own houses involves an estimated ₹7,350 crore. The government has, so far, given administrative sanction for ₹500 crore for Gruha Lakshmi.
The total revenue receipts of the State for the first two months of the financial year 2023-24, however, were not up to the expectations and remained at 10.36% – ₹22,427 crore at the end of May against ₹2.16 lakh crore estimated for the financial year 2023-24. Tax revenue during the first two months too remained at ₹20,097 crore, 13.18% of the ₹1.52 lakh crore projected for the fiscal, according to the provisional date submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
