HYDERABAD, Mar 13: Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has set about in right earnest to carry out a balancing exercise of a different kind, which could prove more difficult than the political brinkmanship he has exhibited over the past few days.With the state assembly's budget session slated to begin on Monday, the laptop-lugging chief minister has his task cut out given the difficult financial position of the government, on the brink of disaster several times in the past.
Naidu is also looking forward to help from international consultants McKinsey & Co in him bailing out.
McKinsey & Co was commissioned by the state government to give final shape to the chief minister's pet project, Vision 2020, which seeks to lay out specific targets and strategies for 14 broad sectors, setting milestones for each. The document's final draft, which was to be ready by January 1, but was put on the back-burner owing to the Lok Sabha election, is now understood to be final.
Though it remains to bediscussed by the assembly and opinion-makers, as promised by Naidu, the chief minister is understood to be keen on incorporating the micro-level interventions suggested by McKinsey, particularly for the industrial sector, in the annual plan to be presented with the state budget, according to senior officials.
``The attempt, however, is to build enough flexibility in it to carry out changes if necessary after the public debates,'' the sources said.
It remains to be seen how it will be politically and finanacially feasible for Naidu to do this. But the state exchequer is not on an even keel. Naidu has planned several ambitious programmes like the Janmabhoomi, Vision 2020 and others to cater to in the annual plan.
According to an internal government document, the state budget was heading towards a net deficit of Rs 1,983 crore by the end of the current fiscal against the budgeted Rs 301.27 crore. This is despite an additional post-budget receipt of Rs 1,400 crore during the year by way of excisecollections.While the main contributing factor has been the additional post-budget expenditure of Rs 2,194 crore, the exchequer also has to contend with a shortfall in collections like small-savings and entry-tax.Against the target of Rs 1,150 crore (net) in small savings and Rs 3,500 crore (gross) for the current year, according to offcial sources, at the end of February only Rs 514 crore (net) and Rs 1816 crore (gross) could be collected under the head.With time available till March 31, the sources said they were hopeful the figure could go up to Rs 600 crore (net), which they feel would in itself be commendable considering the small savings collections the whole of last year was a mere Rs 212 crore.
