HYDERABAD: In the first two months of the current financial year that has just begun, the finance department of the state government has the difficult task of mobilising additional financial resources to the tune of Rs 5,800 crore for Rythu Bandhu scheme. The financial stress in these two months will be akin to the first four-year rule of the TRS government when it waived crop loans of around Rs 4,000 crore in four instalments.Though the state’s revenues are good and the budget size is big, mobilising an additional amount of Rs 3,000 crore a month will really be a difficult task.
The average monthly revenue of the government is around Rs 10,500 crore. Of that, the committed expenditure of the state will be more than 80 per cent. The committed expenses like salaries of government employees, social security pensions and establishment expenditure will be around Rs 6,000 crore. The debt service will be around Rs 1,100 crore. The other expenses like spending on health and providing food to hostels cannot be avoided. With this committed expenditure, the state may be left with very little finances.
However, sources in the Finance department said that they had devised plans to implement the Rs 4,000-an-acre investment support scheme (Rythu Bandhu) for farmers. “We are following the same procedure that was followed while implementing the crop loan waiver. We will not stop other payments and continue the committed expenditure,” an official in the finance department said.
The state government will start distributing the cheques to farmers from April 20 and the programme will continue for at least two months. Thus, the state will require around Rs 3,000 crore per month for Rythu Bandhu scheme.
However, the main problem before the finance department is ensuring the availability of sufficient currency in banks before the agriculture department starts distributing the cheques. “We have made repeated requests to the Reserve Bank to provide sufficient currency. We are yet to hear from the top officials of RBI,” an official said.