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The Budget session of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh legislative Assemblies is slated to begin Saturday with the customary address by Governor ESL Narasimhan in both the Houses in the morning.
After bifurcation on June 2 last year, the governments of the two states will be presenting the first full Budget with full command on finances and programmes of their own. The two governments would present their Budgets for the year 2015-16 next week.
The Andhra Pradesh government headed by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had presented the annual Budget for 2014-15 on August 20, proposing a total expenditure of Rs 1.12 lakh crore for the full year. Similarly the Telangana government headed by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had presented the annual Budget with Rs 1 lakh crore as an estimated expenditure in November 2014.
Together, the two governments had raised the estimate of overall expenditure by about Rs 35,000 crore over and above the Rs 1.83-lakh crore budget proposed for the entire state for 2014-15 prior to bifurcation in February 2014. For this, the two governments had shown higher grants from the central government though the anticipated grants remained only on paper.
With the Centre offering higher devolution to states besides giving a higher flexibility in spending on programmes of their choice, the two states are expected to give more focus to their flagship programmes in the Budgets. On the other hand, the opposition parties are also expected to watch the budgetary proposals keenly so as to find a connection between allocations and promises made by the ruling TRS and TDP governments during the course of last year.
The governor would first address the AP session and then the Telangana assembly a couple of hours later. Police has beefed up the security around the Assembly complex as both the sessions would be conducted in the same premises though in different buildings.
