In the background of opposition tirade against his government that he had transformed `surplus state’ into a status of financial crisis, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is making moves to showcase its financial soundness despite demonetisation with an ambitious plan outlay of Rs 1.50 lakh crore for 2017-18.

As the Budget session of State Assembly is scheduled to be held in the second week of March, he has been personally having series of meetings with finance officials. In 2015-16, the TRS government came up with a budget of Rs 1,15,689 lakh crore and Rs 1,30,416 lakh crore in 2016-17.

Government officials are admitting that demonetisation had a negative impact on the financial condition of most of the States in the country. However, they claims that Telangana bounced back from demonetisation and made alternative arrangements for strengthening its economy. Officials indicates that the State recorded 19.5 per cent growth and is now making huge development plans for the 2017-18 budget.

According to the Chief Minister the State was getting an additional Rs 10,000 crore to Rs. 15,000 crore revenue every year, indicating the robust financial position of the State. The budget is likely to be more as an `election budget’ to prepare ground for 2019 polls by making budgetary allocations for Chief Minister’s announcements and assurances and the total has already crossed Rs 1 lakh crore.

The other day, the Chief Minister hinted that starting from the 2017-18 budget focus will be more on strengthening the village economy and development of community-based professions. After irrigation, officials said, the major budgetary allocations will go to rural development and Panchayat Raj, social welfare and agriculture sector.

“Telangana economy is strong enough and the measures taken by the State government during the last two years have further strengthened it. It is great to have budget estimates of nearly Rs 1.50 lakh crore,” said an economist.