5 months ago
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Andhra Pradesh’s finances person faced sustained unit implicit the past 3 years, with gross consistently falling abbreviated of expenditure by November each year. This spread has forced the State to trust heavy connected borrowing, pushing the fiscal shortage adjacent to yearly targets overmuch earlier than planned and exposing structural weaknesses successful gross mobilisation and expenditure management.
Data from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) highlights a troubling pattern: rising committed expenditure, anemic non-tax revenues, and subdued superior spending. In the existent fiscal twelvemonth (2025–26), the State recorded a gross shortage of ₹54,355 crore by November, intimately pursuing deficits of ₹56,805 crore successful 2024 and ₹47,063 crore successful 2023. This shows that fiscal accent has go a recurring diagnostic alternatively than a one-off deviation.
On the expenditure side, committed spending dominates the budget. Revenue expenditure exceeded 60% of yearly estimates by November successful each 3 years, mostly driven by salaries, pensions, involvement payments, and subsidies. Interest payments unsocial climbed from ₹18,302 crore successful November 2023 to implicit ₹24,000 crore by November 2025, reflecting the rising outgo of indebtedness servicing.
Subsidy expenditure besides remains substantial. In FY 2025–26, subsidies are estimated astatine ₹25,513 crore, with ₹20,464 crore already spent by November — implicit 80% of the yearly target. In erstwhile years, subsidy spending exceeded the fund estimates by wide margins: 120% successful 2024 and 121% successful 2023, highlighting persistent unit connected payment allocations.
Revenue receipts, meanwhile, person lagged down targets, reaching lone ₹1.05 lakh crore by November 2025, which is 48% of the yearly estimate. Tax revenue, including GST and the State’s stock of Union taxes, remains the superior contributor, but maturation is insufficient to lucifer rising expenditure. Non-tax gross continues to underperform, contributing little than one-fifth of the fund estimation successful 2025–26, compared to comparatively better, but inactive inadequate, show successful 2023–24, arsenic per the CAG report.
While gross postulation is steady, it is insufficient to conscionable regular and committed expenditures. Heavy reliance connected borrowing to span the spread underscores the request for fiscal reforms, improved gross mobilisation, and cautious expenditure management. Without these measures, the indebtedness load volition proceed to rise, constraining the State’s quality to put successful improvement and payment programmes, arsenic per indications fixed successful the CAG report.
