Senior Congress MLA K R Ramesh Kumar on Friday said that continuing with the good work done by IAS officer D K Ravi, who died under mysterious circumstance recently, will be the biggest tribute to the officer.
Participating in a debate on 2015-16 budget proposals in the Assembly, he said Ravi had raided several big-ticket real estate companies in Bengaluru and recovered tax to the tune of Rs 190 crore from them. “What he started should be continued. That will be the biggest tribute to the honest officer,” he stated. He sarcastically sought to know from the government whether the officer was given any special powers to collect tax from those who try to evade. “Why other officers in the Commercial Taxes department were not doing their job as efficiently as Ravi? Had the government given any special powers to the officer,” he questioned.
He took a dig at Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for not announcing any scheme to supply drinking water to parched Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts. Almost all north Karnataka districts have been identified as drought prone and a water supply scheme has been announced. But there is no mention of Kolar and Chikkaballapur.
Besides, plantation crops spread over 32,000 hectares in these two districts have been damaged. The farmers are in distress. Still the budget is silent on this issue, Kumar, who represents Srinivaspur Assembly constituency, said.
Basavaraj Bommai (BJP) said lack of any link between outlay and output in the State budget document had put a question mark on the integrity of the State’s annual financial statement. He accused the government of taking a lackadaisical attitude in utilisation of funds earmarked for Hyderabad-Karnataka. K S Puttannaiah (Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha) said the government should come out with an agriculture policy and provide more focus and budgetary allocation to the sector.
