Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

YSR fears fresh taxes

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD Feb. 22. The Leader of the Opposition, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, has expressed apprehension that the Government will not be able to make good a revenue deficit of Rs. 2481.83 crores and a fiscal deficit of Rs 7499.41 crores, indicated in the budget proposals, without imposing additional taxes.

In a statement, he said the Finance Minister managed to show an overall deficit of Rs. 85.68 crores with the help of the fresh loans that the Government is seeking during the financial year. The tax revenue of the last financial year had gone up from Rs. 11,675.32 crores to Rs. 13,459.66 crores in the revised estimates submitted to the House. How could the Government mobilise nearly Rs. 2,000 crores additionally without taxing people, he asked.

Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy said the open market borrowings had similarly gone up from Rs. 1358.16 crores to Rs. 2,055 crores in the revised estimates. This year also the open market borrowings are indicated at Rs. 1,374.68 crores, he said.

He said a similar "jugglery of figures'' was resorted to by the Finance Minister in regard to plan expenditure, debt servicing and other aspects to cover up the "grim realities.''

At a press conference, the APCC spokespersons -- Gali Muddukrishnama Naidu and M. Sridhar Reddy -- also accused the Finance Minister of trying to impress people with budgetary allocations for various sectors, which were not followed up by actual releases and expenditure. The seventh budget presented to the House since N. Chandrababu Naidu became Chief Minister concealed the threat of additional taxes, they said.

Ritualistic budget, says CPI(M)

The CPI (M) State Committee termed the Budget " ritualistic'' and one not addressing any real issue.

Talking to presspersons, B.V. Raghavulu, secretary of the committee, said that at best the budget was "an irresponsible'' one and there was no sanctity for either the draft budget or the economic survey.

The statistics given did not match the ground reality, he said.

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