Budget session of legislature to start from March 16

The Budget Session of the State Legislature will start from March 16.

The session will start with the traditional address by Governor Jishnu Dev Varma and this will be followed by the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee of the Legislature to decide about the agenda and the duration of the session.

Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, who holds the Finance portfolio, will present the annual financial statement and budget for the year 2026-27 on March 20. The session will be adjourned sine die after the discussion on the demands for grants. The State Cabinet, which met here on Monday under the chairmanship of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has finalised the dates for the all important budget session at its marathon meeting.

With the dates for the assembly finalised, all eyes are on the allocations that would be made to individual departments. The budget for the next financial year is likely to be focused on welfare and development, with a major chunk of funds likely to be earmarked for irrigation, panchayat raj, municipal administration and agriculture. It would be interesting to watch how the State will strike a balance between welfare and development, given the disappointment it had expressed over the allocations in the Union Budget.

With the Chief Minister particularly keen on launching the Musi riverfront development project and the government commencing land acquisition for the project, significant allocations are likely to be made for the project as well as for the development of the areas abutting the Musi river. It may be recalled that the government had allocated ₹1,500 crore in the current fiscal, of which it had released ₹375 crore for Musi Riverfront Development Corporation Limited towards land acquisition and other costs.

The legislature is likely to witness the passage of legislation replacing ordinances, and these include the trifurcation of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation into three separate entities. The two new entities have been proposed with over 70 wards each in addition to the 150 wards in the GHMC, whose limits are likely to be confined to Hyderabad city, so as to give boost to development in the peripheral areas.