JOIN USWith the Karnataka Assembly elections only two months away, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah presented last week a please-all, largely tax-free, budget for 2018-19. While that was on expected lines, what was surprising was the scale of the giveaways in what has been proudly bandied about as a Rs 2.1 lakh crore budget. The chief minister asserted that he had not intended it as an election-oriented budget but in the same breath also vowed to win re-election and come back to fulfil the promises. Of course, a new government would have the prerogative to scrap this budget, which is technically a Vote-on-Account, and present a revised one. In any case, Siddaramaiah, presenting his 13th budget, took a record four hours to read the 158-page document in which he made sure that there was something for every segment of society: farmers, traders, women, students and the elderly. He needs to be congratulated for nevertheless being able to keep the fiscal deficit estimate down to a manageable 2.5%.
Clearly dictated by electoral politics, the chief minister has proposed a payment of Rs 5,000 each directly into the bank accounts of 70 lakh farmers in dryland areas, amounting to Rs 3,500 crore a year. But he refrained from a total farm loan waiver and restricted the relief to only families of deceased farmers and even for them up to Rs 1 lakh of borrowing only. The state is also to have an ambitious universal health coverage programme of its own, staying out of the Centre's newly-proposed National Health Protection Scheme. Yet, imitating the Union budget, he made no corresponding allocation for the scheme. But students, especially girl students, have something to cheer about. Not only have bus passes been made totally free for all students across the state, girl students joining pre-university, degree and post-graduate courses in government colleges have been specially exempted from paying any fee. It is a welcome decision that could help arrest the dropout rate among girls in higher education.
It's perhaps Bengaluru that Siddaramaiah may have disappointed most. While mercifully not announcing any new grandiose project, he has made a Rs 2,500 crore allocation to address the city's infrastructure challenges, which is hardly sufficient. The budget, like previous editions, announces plans to redevelop 88 lakes -- again without specific financial support to the cause. One particularly worrying allocation is of Rs 50 crore for the rejuvenation of Bellandur Lake. Without as yet a clear plan in place on how to clean up the highly polluted lake, the money could simply end up in contractors' pockets. Siddaramaiah could have shown more imagination with regard to solving the city's problems.