The Telangana government has set a trend by spending a major portion of its budget on welfare programmes in the country. From Rs 35.285 crore, it is now spending Rs 93.489 crore is on average it is spending 56.85 percent of its budget on welfare programmes.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its website published these accounts. It took five years of spending of the government on average and came to the conclusion. It took into account the spending from 2016-2017 to 2020-2021 – five year period. The actual figure will be arrived at in the next financial year 2021-2022.
If taken into account the spending of 2022-2023, the state government spent nearly 56.85 percent on welfare programmes.
No other state government spent this much on welfare programmes. The Telangana government launched scores of welfare programmes – Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bheema, KCR kits, Shadi Mubarak, Kalyana Laxmi, free power to farmers, and whatnot? The list goes endless.
At the same, it did not neglect the development programmes as well. It had taken up Kaleswaram project to the revival of irrigation canals, the revival of village-level tanks, construction of modern flyovers, and roads to name a few.
True to his word, the chief minister Mr K Chandrasekhar Rao introduced at least one welfare programme to every community from Scheduled Castes to the Brahmin community. This is something revolutionary that no other state could do so far.
By Gollapudi Srinivasa Rao