The Andhra Pradesh government has successfully managed to skip making a budget for the second year in a row. Instead, the government has once again prepared an ordinance, detailing the expenditure for the next three months, which includes the salaries of government employees, and the amount required for the Navaratnalu schemes. This amounts up to approximately Rs. 90,000 Crores.
In any democracy, the governments announce the budget for the upcoming financial year, before the end of the current fiscal year. This is a rule that has been followed by all governments of India – central and state – ever since independent India was formed. This year too, every other government of the country announced their budgets, and took the approval from their respective assemblies, with the exception of the Andhra Pradesh government.
Last year too, the AP government introduced its budget much later, by drafting up an ordinance at first. The AP government cited Coronavirus as the reason for the delayed drafting of the budget. This year too, the AP government has done the same, albeit without an explanation or reason for doing so again. There are no current assembly sessions going on in AP, and the approval for the ordinance that has been drafted has been taken from ministers through online video conferences.
This ordinance is now near the governor of AP, for his approval. With the AP government not drafting a budget for the second year in a row, many are speculating that the real reason for this is that the government doesn’t want the people to know just how much in debt the government is in. It is no secret that the AP government is in great debt, but introducing the budget would certainly show the public all the loopholes, which the government seems to be very much avoiding.