Addressing the media along with Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana, C Ramachandraiah, D. Sridhar Babu, D K Aruna, Pithani Sathyanarayana and others after the Assembly was adjourned to Wednesday following presentation of 2013-14 budget and State Government’s Agriculture Policy, Ramanarayana Reddy said there was a provision to introduce special budget following the presentation of Budget in the House. He said they have failed to discuss on presentation of Agriculture Budget in the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) and also failed to follow some procedures due to ignorance of officers concerned.
The Finance Minister explained that he and Agriculture Minister had brought the issue to the notice of the Chief Minister, Speaker and Legislative Council Chairman Dr A Chakrapani and took their consent and also discussed the issue with the floor leaders to introduce the Agriculture Policy as a supplementary to the main budget.
He said the government’s effort was to prepare a comprehensive action plan for development of the agriculture sector and not because they presented the Agriculture Policy following the statement of the main Opposition leader Chandrababu Naidu. One has to see the Agriculture Policy presentation as part of presentation of the main budget.
The Finance Minister made it clear that the budget 2013-14 was not an election budget. “It is a Congress party’s budget aimed to serve the people”, he added. He said the government was not imposing new taxes and increasing the revenue through the economic reforms and reducing loses and utilizing the resources properly.
Finance Minister said the budget-2013-14 was introduced based on the aims of the Chief Minister and PCC Chief to fulfill the assurances given in the election manifesto. He said it was only possible with the Congress to introduce more than Rs 1 lakh crore budget and more than 1.5 lakh crore budget in the House.
The Finance Minister said the total budget (Rs. 1,61,348 crores) has increased by 10.62 per cent when compared to the last year budget. He said the budget is a pucca welfare budget and it would help benefit all sections of the people. He also said the budget was prepared keeping the SC/ST Sub-Plans in view and allocated 22.8 per cent of the budget. He said funds will be spent through Nodal agencies and assured that the government would spend 100 per cent funds of the SC/ST Sub-Plan. He said the government allocated Rs.4027 crores for BC Welfare by increasing it by 33 per cent when compared to the last year’s allocation.
Anam said the budget allotted for the Irrigation sector was less than last year’s budget because he was sure that both Polavaram and Pranahitha-Chevella projects would get national status and 90 per cent of the funds for them would come from the Centre. He also said he allotted more than Rs 7000 crores for electricity department and it was more than last year’s allocation. He also said the government will accept the advices and suggestions from the newly appointed Standing Committees and make changes if necessary. He said the discussion will be held for six days on the budget in the House and Vote-On-Account Budget will be introduced in the House on March 26. After three weeks, the second phase of the budget session will start after getting the report of the Standing Committees on the Budget. He said once again the discussion will be held on the budget following the discussion in BAC.
