Rs 6,000 crore grant for infra works: CM Siddaramaiah tells Karnataka Assembly

Belagavi: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced in the Assembly on Thursday that he will grant Rs 6,000 crore for infrastructure works even as he fought claims made by the opposition BJP that the Congress government had no funds for development activities.

“We are granting Rs 4,000 crore under the appendix-e of the public works department. For rural road works, we’re granting Rs 2,000 crore for all constituencies, even those represented by BJP and JD(S) MLAs,” Siddaramaiah said, adding that “special grants” will be given to Bengaluru as well.

The CM said this while replying to a debate initiated by the BJP on lack of developmental grants to constituencies after Congress came to power last year.

Siddaramaiah rejected claims that expenditure on the Congress’ five flagship ‘guarantee’ schemes had eaten into development.

“The problem is not the ‘guarantee’ schemes. The previous BJP governments under BS Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai derailed the state’s finances. Even under Bommai -- I though he understood finances -- there was fiscal anarchy,” Siddaramaiah said.

Siddaramaiah said the previous BJP government sanctioned works to the tune of Rs 2.09 lakh crore without any budgetary provision. “Also, bills worth Rs 29,000 crore were left pending. We have had to clear 62.55 per cent of the pending bills, which is about Rs 18,000 crore,” he explained.

After coming to power, the Congress government has earmarked Rs 88,867 crore for the ‘guarantee’ schemes, Siddaramaiah said. “In 2023-24 and 2024-25, we have provided Rs 1.05 lakh crore for capital expenditure, of which Rs 72,210 crore has been spent,” he said.

Siddaramaiah also lashed out at the Modi administration for reducing grants to Karnataka. “The 15th Finance Commission had recommended special grants of Rs 5,495 crore to Karnataka. Also, they said they’d give the state Rs 3,000 crore for lakes and Rs 3,000 crore for the peripheral ring road. This didn’t come,” he said, adding that for every rupee Karnataka pays as tax, it gets back 13-14 paise.

Rs 5,000 cr for KKRDB

Replying to the debate on North Karnataka development, Siddaramaiah said his government is committed to the development of this backward region. He said his government has provided a record amount of Rs 5,000 to the Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board (KKRDB).