Early budget session of TS Assembly on cards

Hyderabad: With speculations rife that the Election Commission of India would announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections any time after mid-February or first week of March, the Congress government was planning to hold the budget session of the Assembly early this year.

The government has begun the exercise to prepare the budget outlay for the financial year 2024-25. Sources said that the government was of the view that the conduct of the budget session before the announcement of the election schedule would help avoid any violation of election code in the announcement of implementation of new schemes and allocation funds to the ongoing schemes.

Generally, the state government holds the budget session during March. As per the reports emanating from the Election Commission, the Lok Sabha elections will be held from April first week in six or seven phases in the country. In all probability, the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana will be held in the first phase. The Finance department has instructed all other departments to compile the data of expenditure incurred during the current financial year and the budget proposals for the new financial year.

Officials said that the government wanted to complete the entire exercise for the budget outlay soon after the presentation of the Central budget on February 1. Based on the estimations and allocations made in the Union Budget-2024-25, officials said that the state budget outlay will be finalised. The session would be convened accordingly.

The officials of the Finance department said the government had already announced the implementation of the six guarantees and funds for their implementation would be made in the budget proposals.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy would hold a series of meetings from January end with the Finance and other welfare departments to finalise the outlay.