Hyderabad: Nearly two months after coming to power, the Chandrababu Naidu government in Andhra Pradesh has taken the vote-on-account budget route for the state’s expenditure for the next four months, prompting the opposition YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) to accuse the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of hoodwinking the public with its tall election promises.
A vote on account is an advance grant for part of the financial year, pending completion of the process of voting on the budget.
Notably, the TDP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the state issued an ordinance on the vote-on-account budget 2024-25 of Rs 1.29 lakh crore, instead of presenting the document in the legislature for approval. The ordinance was promulgated by Andhra Pradesh Governor Abdul Nazeer Wednesday to come into immediate effect from 1 August.
“As the new government has come to power recently and the finance department in coordination with the departments is finalising the liabilities and also resources in due coordination with revenue earning departments, the budget presentation requires some more time. Hence, in order to facilitate the departments to draw the money for incurring the expenditure, it is necessary to take approval for Vote-on-Account Budget for the period 1 August, 2024 to 30 November, 2024,” said the ordinance published in the Andhra Pradesh state gazette.
It said the ordinance route had been taken since the state legislature “is now not in session and the governor of Andhra Pradesh is satisfied that circumstances exist which render it necessary for him to take immediate action”.
The first session of the 16th Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly was held last week and was adjourned sine die Friday. The vote-on-account budget had been expected during the session, according to news reports at the time.
This is the second vote-on-account budget that has been put into action for this financial year.
In February, ahead of elections in May, the then YSRCP government under Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had presented the budget estimates (vote-on-account) 2024-25 in the state legislature. It was approved for the first four months of the financial year, i.e., 1 April to 31 July 2024. However, in the state assembly elections in May, the TDP-Jana Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance won in a landslide victory, reducing the YSRCP to a mere 11 seats.
However, the Naidu government, instead of presenting a full budget, went for another vote-on-account budget. Speaking in the House last week, during a discussion on the motion of thanks to the governor’s address, Naidu had said a full budget would be presented after two months since the government was “not in a position to present it due to financial crisis-constraints”.
Since reassuming the chief minister’s chair last month, four-time CM Naidu has issued several white papers on matters, from power and natural resources to Amaravati and Polavaram, blaming Jagan’s “misgovernance of various sectors and mismanagement of financial resources as the root cause of the dire situation AP is in”. In a white paper on finances presented in the assembly last week, Naidu pegged AP’s debt and liabilities at Rs 9.74 lakh crore.
Naidu said that “all systems in the state collapsed due to the YSRCP misrule”. The chief minister expressed concern over his government’s inability to move ahead on several issues covered in the election manifesto.
The YSRCP has alleged that the move was a “deliberate delay” to avoid fulfilling the party’s poll promises. ThePrint has reached out to finance minister Payyavula Keshav for his response over the phone.
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‘To evade poll promises’
YSRCP chief Jagan hit back Friday, questioning Naidu’s government for “resorting to the vote-on-account budget”.
“Naidu is backing away from a full budget as he would have to incorporate allocations for his bogus poll promises,” the former CM told reporters at Tadepalli, near Amaravati.
Buggana Rajendranath, former finance minister and YSRCP leader, told ThePrint that it was “mysterious that the newly formed alliance government is averse to placing a full budget for the financial year, contrary to the established practice”.
“The new government is in place and there is no COVID-19 pandemic like exceptional circumstances that makes convening of the House impossible. Then why vote on account, that too, puzzlingly, in an ordinance form?” he asked.
Buggana attributed the AP budget “deliberate delay” to the government’s inability to fulfil its “super six welfare promises and other tall impractical commitments”.
Included in the TDP-JSP manifesto and publicised as “Babu’s Super Six – Surety for a secured future,” the promises included 20 lakh jobs for youth or an unemployment allowance of Rs 3,000 per month; Rs 15,000 per annum (p.a.) for sending each child of poor mothers to school; Rs 20,000 p.a. in financial aid to farmers; three free gas cylinders p.a. for each needy family; Rs 1,500 per month in aid for women; and free travel in RTC buses for women.
“Is Naidu trying to hoodwink various sections like women, farmers, SC (Scheduled Castes), BC (Backward Classes) and minorities after having promised them the moon?” Buggana asked.
The former minister also said that Naidu feared a full budget as his government would have to substantiate “election-time propaganda that the debt under the YSRCP government rose to astronomical levels, to the tune of Rs 14 lakh crore”.
“While placing a budget for the full year, the government has to lay before the House statements providing the details of the debt, both government and of corporations guaranteed by it. This, by no stretch of imagination, would reach Rs 14 lakh crore,” said the former Andhra Pradesh FM.
“Subsequently, the alliance government changed its stand in the governor’s address to the legislature, stating that the debt is over Rs 10 lakh crore. Then it released a white paper in which liabilities aggregate to Rs 9,74,556 crore. Even these calculations were done in an unprofessional manner, unjustifiably hiking the debt figures and in some cases resorting to double counting of liabilities,” Buggana said.
“A full budget would expose the lies of the TDP alliance. Therefore, this is a deliberate delay,” Buggana told ThePrint.
Buggana said that despite allegations that state funds were as low as Rs 100 crore, “our government brought in a full budget on 12 July, 2019 with an outlay of Rs 2,27,975 crore”.
The senior YSRCP leader also objected to the ordinance route for the vote-on-account budget. “TDP alliance took office on 12 June, and the AP assembly was convened for several days last week too. When it was known that the budget or vote on account was to be passed before 31 July, it is perplexing that the government chose the ordinance route for vote on account.”
Speaking to ThePrint, a former top civil servant in AP said: “To my knowledge, going for vote on account for the second time in a fiscal is unprecedented in AP. If the finances are bad as claimed by the CM, the scenario would not change much in two-three months. Unable to fulfil the election promises at this juncture, it looks like Naidu is trying to manipulate public opinion by showing the debt bogey,”
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)