The Andhra Pradesh government presented a budget amounting to Rs 2.24 lakh crore for the financial year 2020-21. There is a decrease of 1.4% as compared to the last year, owing to financial slowdown. Carrying a fiscal deficit of Rs 48,295 crore, state finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy presented the budget estimates to the Assembly. The state’s debt increased to Rs 3.02 lakh crore in March 2020, with an increase from Rs 2.59 lakh crore in a year. When the expenditure stands at 2.24 lakh crore out of that revenue expenditure will be 1.80 lakh crore of rupees. The agriculture sector will be allotted Rs 11,891 crore, health department to receive Rs 11,419 crore and Rs 11,805 crore are allocated to Irrigation sector. With panchayat polls near, the state government’s top priorities emerge to be education, health and agriculture sectors.
The Jagan government also plans to implement welfare schemes as around 18.41% (Rs 41,456.29 crore) of the total budget has been allocated to welfare initiatives as opposed to 6.20% (Rs 14,142.99 crore) last year. The SC, ST, OBC, Minority and Kapu communities will be targeted by these welfare schemes. The growth rate of budget allocation to welfare stands at 193.12% when compared to the financial year 2019-20. Despite the total expenditure going down by 8.59%, a significant increase in the expenditure pertaining to development schemes catering to these communities can be seen. The Schedule Castes (SC) component has been increased from Rs 15,000.85 crore in 19-20 to Rs 15,735.68 crore in 2020-21. The ST component has been increased from Rs 4,988.52 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 5,177.53 crore in 2020-21.The OBC component has been increased from Rs 15,061.64 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 25,331.30 crore in 2020-21 with a growth rate of 68.18%. The minority welfare component has been increased by a whopping 116.10 % from Rs 948.73 crore in 2019- 20 to Rs 2,050.22 crore in 2020-21.