HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu presented the 2016-17 budget in full electronic format with budgetary proposals supplied to the state legislators in Tablet computers, marking a first. Tablet PCs fed with the budget proposals, socio-economic survey 2015-16, and other related documents were given to the legislators, and mediapersons were given the data in pen drive.
“I am happy to inform the House that the budget for 2016-17 is unique on several counts. First and foremost, it's an e-budget with all documents being made available in easily readable format on a Tablet that you can carry anywhere and refer to at any time,” the Minister said in his speech. He also called the budget “truly decentralised” as each of the 20,800 drawing and disbursing officers in the state prepared the proposals for the unit under their control. “This is a genuinely outcome-focused budget with unwavering focus on performance and outcomes rather than the traditional input-based budget. It is also a demand-driven budget based on the needs of the grassroots and expectations of the people. We have obtained inputs from the public and incorporated them suitably.”
In the 125 minutes, he took to read out the 57-paged text, Yanamala quoted APJ Abdul Kalam, HW Longfellow, Swami Vivekananda, Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D Roosevelt, BR Ambedkar and Wilfred Peterson.
