Telangana government has incurred an excess expenditure of ₹1.05 lakh crore in 2022-23. It has also failed to get the excess expenditure of ₹2.89 lakh crore over and above the allocation pertaining to financial year 2014-22 regularised by the State Legislature.
“This is in violation of Article 204 of the Constitution,” the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India said.
The CAG pointed out several deficiencies in budgetary management by the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi government in the financial year 2022-23. The premier auditing agency said incurring expenditure without budget provisions not only continued but has increased significantly as the government spent ₹8,895 crore in 48 sub-heads without Budget provision. The government failed to obtain the approval of the legislature despite incurring expenditure of ₹7,061 crore towards taking over the losses of Discoms under UDAY (Ujjwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana) as also the investment of ₹122 crore made in the State Road Development Corporation.
The CAG said an amount of ₹25,422 crore was estimated to be received through non-tax revenue for 2022-23 and the receipts were ₹19,554 crore. Of this, ₹5,723 crore through other receipts was mainly on account of lapsing of deposit accounts and ₹5,003 crore through royalty of major minerals due to arrears as well as advance payment by the SCCL.
“With the non-tax revenue, the government has estimated ₹15,500 crore to be received from sale of land and property whereas it has received only ₹791 crore,” the CAG said adding the projections of receipts from non-tax revenue in budget estimates were on higher side persistently during the last three years.
According to the State Finance Audit Report of the CAG for 2022-23, the State government estimated a huge amount of ₹41,002 crore as grants in aid from the Centre and it had received ₹13,179 crore. “The government unrealistically projected ₹25,555 crore to be received as special package and additional Central assistance which was neither found in the Centre’s Budget proposals nor received during 2022-23. Like non-tax revenue, projections of receipts from grants in aid in Budget estimates were on the higher side persistently during the last two years,” the report said.
The report pointed out that huge allocations made in the year 2022-23 remained totally unspent in respect of construction of two-bedroom houses (₹11,000 crore), assistance to sheep and goat development cooperative federation and oil palm cultivation (₹1,000 crore each). Huge portions of allocations on flagship schemes like Telangana Dalit Bandhu (unspent provision ₹15,700 crore) and scheme for debt relief to farmers (₹3,964 crore) remained unspent.
Even in the revised estimates presented in February 2023, huge receipts (₹7,500 crore) as inter-State settlement were estimated which were not actually realised. “The amount estimated was pertaining to electricity dues receivable by Telangana power companies from Andhra Pradesh power companies and not by the State government,” the report said.
