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Journalism of Courage
Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Payyavula Keshav presented a Rs 3.22 lakh crore Budget for 2025-26 in the House Friday, which marked the state’s first full-fledged Budget since the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)-led NDA government stormed to power by sweeping the Assembly polls in June 2024.
Hailing the Budget, Chief Minister and TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu said the Budget would act as a “bridge” to achieve the 10 guiding principles of his government’s “Swarna Andhra 2047 Vision”. “This Budget lays the foundation for Andhra Pradesh’s reconstruction,” he said.
The Budget has sought to balance welfare with development. Its highlights include major allocations for the welfare of the Backward Classes (BCs) as well as the Scheduled Castes (SCs), and for the implementation of Naidu’s election pledge of “Super Six” guarantees from May this year.
Naidu has been under intense pressure to fulfil his poll promises in the midst of the state’s precarious financial situation. His “Super Six” guarantees include free travel for women in state-run buses; Rs 20,000 to each farmer per annum under Annadata Sukhibhava-PM Kisan scheme; three free LPG cylinders per year to eligible beneficiaries; Rs 15,000 for school children under Thalliki Vandanam scheme; Rs 1,500 allowance per month to girl students; and Rs 3,000 per month to unemployed youths. The Budget makes allocations for these schemes — including Rs 6,300 crore for the Annadata Sukhibhava programme and Rs 9,407 crore for the Thalliki Vandanam scheme.
Focusing on welfare and upliftment of the BC and SC communities which played a key role in ensuring the TDP’s victory in the elections, the Naidu government allocated Rs 47,456 crore for BC welfare programmes and Rs 20,218 crore for the SC welfare schemes. It has allotted Rs 48,341 crore for agriculture.
Another significant allocation is Rs 18,019 crore for the state’s crucial water resource. This is for improving irrigation and drinking water supply systems in the Rayalaseema districts which often face water scarcity.
When the previous Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSRCP government proposed converting all Telugu-medium schools to English-medium ones, there was a backlash. The Naidu government has allocated Rs 10 crore for the development of Telugu language.
The education sector has got a major allocation — Rs 34,311 crore — which will go mainly to bolster the infrastructure and human resource of schools and junior colleges in the state. The government has also proposed to provide free power to government schools.
An amount of Rs 6,000 crore has been allocated for development of the Amaravati capital city, Naidu’s dream project.
The Naidu government has scrapped the Jagan regime’s decision to centralise the municipal payments, with the municipalities now set to have full control of their finances from April 1.
Looking to promote private sector involvement in infrastructure development in Andhra Pradesh, the government has made a viability gap funding proposal. Under this scheme, the state will give funds up to 20% of the project cost of the public private partnership (PPP) projects, for which a corpus of Rs 2,000 core has been proposed.
