The Budget session of the State Legislature to take up the annual statement of accounts of Telangana for 2020-21 will begin with Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan’s address to both Houses- Assembly and Council- at 11 a.m. on Friday.
This will be the first time that Ms. Soundararajan will come to the Assembly after assuming office in September. Her address will be followed by meetings of the Business Advisory Committees of both the Houses separately to decide duration and agenda of session.
Indications, however, were that the motion of thanks to the Governor’s address will be taken up on Saturday and closed with Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s reply the same day. Finance Minister T. Harish Rao will present the Budget, his first, on Sunday after which the House will adjourn for holiday on account of Holi on Monday and regular business taken up thereafter. Legislative Affairs Minister V. Prashant Reddy will present the same in the Legislative Council. The session is likely to continue for two weeks, sources said.
The Chief Minister has already held detailed review meetings on the shape of Budget with senior officials over the past few days. On Wednesday, he called on the Governor to handover the text of her speech.
The Budget session is going to be held for the second time in less than six months as the earlier one for 2019-20 took place in the second week of September. In the Budget presented by the Chief Minister in September, the outlay was scaled down from ₹ 1.82 lakh crore envisagde in the Vote on Account Budget presented in February, 2019 to ₹ 1.46 lakh crore, which was 9.1 % lower than the revised estimates of 2018-19. It is in this context that the size of the Budget now has assumed significance in the backdrop of economic slowdown. The government had already announced that it will move resolutions opposing National Population Register, National Register of Citizens and Citizens Amendment Act in the Assembly. The new Revenue Act and some other legislations were also likely to be moved.
On the other hand, the Congress with just half-a-dozen members is likely to confront the government on farmers’ issues, mainly crop loan waiver which has not happened after the TRS promised it in elections, loans borrowed on redesign of irrigation projects in the last six years and unemployment.
