Jumbo Budget to ensure KCR 3.0 govt

Hyderabad: The TRS wants to make Dalit Bandhu as its flagship programme to see that it wins the hearts of Dalits ahead of the next general elections. With this aim, the State Government is contemplating presenting a Jumbo Budget during the last week of February with an outlay of Rs 2.5 lakh crore. Of this Rs 20,000 crore would be allocated exclusively for the Dalit Bandhu scheme. Not just that, it is also likely to announce some more freebies.

The single-point agenda of the budget to be presented in February is to see that there is a KCR-3.0 government towards the end of 2023. The five-year term of the present government would end in December 2023. Hence, the TRS government may not be able to go in for the full budget for 2023-24 financial year. Hence exercise to come up with a jumbo budget for 2022-2023 is on.

Official sources said that the proposal to launch schemes like Minorities Bandhu and some schemes for economically poorer sections in forward communities is also being considered. Once again, the promise of unemployment dole will be brought to fore and the possibility of including it in the next budget is not ruled out. TRS had promised a dole of Rs 3,000 per month in 2018 in its election manifesto to the unemployed.

The proposal to launch the distribution of free fertilizers to the poor farmers and some more measures to strengthen the agriculture sector is also under study. Officials said that the allocations for the agriculture sector is likely to go up by 50 per cent in the new budget. The Government has earmarked Rs 25,000 crore for the farm sector in 2021 -22 outlay.

Allocation of funds for filling one lakh vacancies is also likely to be included in the budget. The official committee headed by senior IAS officer V Sheshadri is in the process of finalising the vacancies in all government departments.

However, officials feel that the major challenge before the government would be to mobilise funds to meet the budgetary requirements. The State is already facing a crunch as it alleges that the devolution from the Centre was not as expected. The State Finance department had launched a hunt for funds from various sources mainly from banking institutions and corporations.