TS budget session to get delayed - TeluguPeople.com News

Hyderabad: The budget presentation is likely to be delayed by a month with the Telangana government deciding to make a departure from the tradition and adopt a new method of budgetary exercise. Initially, the government wanted to have the budget session of the State Assembly from September 10.

According to official sources, the budget session now might be held in the last week of September or in the first week of October. The government is mulling on promulgating an ordinance to meet the budgetary expenditure for the month of October.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao is understood to have discussed the issue with Governor E S L Narasimhan. KCR told the Governor that the budget session of the State would commence in the third or last week of September or in the first week of October.

If the budget session has to be held in October, government has to issue an ordinance for spending in that month. He also informed his ideas about the budget.

The latest idea of the government is to put the Appropriation Bill for the passage, if necessary, and continue the debate after that. The Chief Minister is keen to make the budget preparation a unique exercise to suit the needs of the people instead of an annual ritual.

He wants to do away with the old practice of department-wise allocations in a compartmentalized manner and wants to make allocation as per the needs of the people.

According to sources, KCR is of the view that the present system of budget allocation was leading to conflict of interests as the departments work independently. Same work would be done by various departments in a piece meal manner and would end up failing to achieve the final targets.

The Chief Minister wants to bring cohesion among various departments so that spending is done in a focused manner. He has ordered formation of task force committees to make recommendations on preparation of the budget.

He held a meeting with the heads of the departments recently and instructed them to adapt to the new system. On Thursday, he convened another meeting to guide the officials on how to go about the exercise in an innovative way.

As a result, the presentation of budget in the Assembly could be delayed. However, the government does not foresee any problems on this count. The Chief Minister also discussed allocation of IAS officers between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana with the Governor and reportedly expressed his unhappiness over giving few officers to AP against their will.