The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Chief Minister’s request puts Rosaiah in a fix

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Saturday, Dec 15, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Chief Minister’s request puts Rosaiah in a fix

Special Correspondent

YSR wants irrigation sector allocation to be doubled

— Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

In a spot: Finance Minister K. Rosaiah with Maganti Babu, MLA at the AP Hotels Association meet in Hyderabad on Friday. Association president G.V. Krishnaiah and secretary B. Jagadeesh Rao are also seen.

HYDERABAD: The pre-budget exercise by Finance Minister K. Rosaiah has put him in a spot as he is faced with a request from Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy to double the allocation for irrigation sector in the coming fiscal.

Mr. Rosaiah revealed his predicament while addressing the golden jubilee celebrations of Andhra Pradesh Hotels Association here on Friday. He doubted whether Dr. Reddy’s request could be fully met but, nonetheless, an exercise was going on in that direction.

The Finance Minister, who was to leave for a pre-budget meeting with senior officials, said it was not easy to double the budget for irrigation from Rs. 13,000 crore this year.

Zero revenue deficit

Mr. Rosaiah said the budget preparations were targeted to achieve zero revenue deficit by March 31, 2009. If the goal was achieved, the Centre had committed itself to releasing a generous grant of Rs. 7,000 crore and also waive all outstandings.

The State Government had to tread the path carefully because the Centre had a right to recover all the outstandings if the former overshot the revenue deficit in any of the years.

Referring to a demand by the hotel industry to reduce the Value Added Tax (VAT) from 7.5 per cent to 2 per cent,

Mr. Rosaiah said the empowered committee on VAT would examine it at its meeting on December 20.

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