The Andhra Pradesh Assembly budget session is scheduled to begin on February 5. The session begins with the address of Governor S Abdul Nazeer to the joint session of the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council.

The Business Advisory Committee of the Assembly which would be held immediately after the Governor’s address would decide how many days that the session should be held and the business of the house, including the presentation of the vote on account budget.

The state cabinet which met here on Wednesday also decided to have the budget session from February 5. As the elections are round the corner, the government wants the session to be brief and is limited to three to five days.

The government is planning to have the session for three to five days. The vote on account budget is likely to be around Rs 75,000 crore. Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath would table the budget in the house. As this is the election year, the budget would mostly focus on the welfare programmes and some industrial development. The chief minister wants the budget to give highest priority to the welfare programmes.

The Jagan Mohan Reddy government had presented a Rs 2.91 lakh crore budget for 2023-24 financial year. This time, the budget may cross Rs 3 lakh crore mark, and this would be presented only after the elections and the formation of the new government.

The chief minister wants to go to the elections by showing the budget to the people which would focus only on the welfare programmes. The chief minister is confident that people would give him one more chance as he had rolled out welfare programmes to every house in the last 57 months. The vote on account budget will have only the welfare programmes.