To fund poll promises, Siddaramaiah hikes borrowing, cuts capex

Siddaramaiah’s latest budget assumes a gross borrowing target of Rs 85,818 crore, 10.4% higher than the borrowing target of Rs 77,750 crore set by Bommai for FY24.

To fund new schemes like Gruha Jyothi, Anna Bhagya, Gruha Lakshmi and Yuva Nidhi, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah seems to be counting on higher tax revenues on the back of the increase in various duties, on higher borrowing from the debt markets, and on reducing capital expenditure in favour of revenue expenditure.

For the current financial year (FY24), Siddaramaiah projected Karnataka’s revenues, excluding devolution and grants-in-aid from the central government, at Rs 1.76 lakh crore. This is 6.7 per cent higher than Rs 1.64 lakh crore his predecessor Basavaraj Bommai had estimated in the pre-election interim budget in February.

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A part of this increase is expected to come from the hike in excise on liquor.

Siddaramaiah’s latest budget assumes a gross borrowing target of Rs 85,818 crore, 10.4 per cent higher than the borrowing target of Rs 77,750 crore set by Bommai for FY24. This comes at a time when the central government wants states to keep their bond issuances to a minimum, to allow space for more corporates to tap the debt markets in order to fund capacity expansion.

The devolution and grants-in-aid expected from the central government remain unchanged between the interim and full budgets for FY24, at Rs 37,252 crore and Rs 13,005 crore, respectively.

On the expenditure front, the revenue expenditure budget estimate has now increased to Rs 2.51 lakh crore for the current financial year, compared with Rs 2.26 lakh crore projected in the interim budget. Revenue expenditure is the spending incurred on administration, welfare schemes (including the new ones), salaries, pensions, and general running of government machinery.

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But this has come at a cost to capital expenditure, which is spending incurred on new and existing infrastructure projects. Siddaramaiah’s capex target for FY24 stands at Rs 54,374 crore, which is 11.2 per cent lower than the Rs 61,234 crore that Bommai had estimated in the interim budget.

Interestingly, the latest capex estimate is lower than the presumptive target that the central government has set for Karnataka in the current financial year, of about Rs 57,381 crore. The Union Finance Ministry has set capex targets for each state, as part of its guidelines for capex support worth Rs 1.3 lakh crore for all the states combined.

Siddaramaiah did not mention any fiscal deficit target for the year. However, it is understood to be unchanged from the one Bommai had set, 2.6 per cent of gross state domestic product (GSDP).

Fiscal deficit is the difference between a government’s revenues and expenditure when the latter is higher. It is unchanged for Karnataka, even though the underlying numbers have changed because the GSDP for the state is now expected to be higher than during the interim budget.