Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday presented the state budget in the assembly after Congress won polls in the May 10 elections. Notably, this is the event budget of SIddaramaiah as the CM of Karnataka. He presented six budgets as CM from 2013-2018. Siddaramaiah said that approximately Rs 52,000 crore would be spent annually for the five key poll 'guarantees' and it is expected to benefit 1.3 crore families. Siddaramaiah created a record of sorts by presenting his 14th budget in the Assembly as Finance Minister, surpassing the mark of late Ramakrishna Hegde, a former CM, who had presented 13 budgets.
Karnataka Budget Highlights
- Presenting the 2023-2024 budget with an outlay of over Rs 3.27 lakh crore, the CM said that through the five 'guarantees' (poll promises), the government will be providing an average additional financial assistance of Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 a month to each household, according to PTI.
- As per PTI, liquor, including beer, is set to get dearer in Karnataka as the state government proposed to hike additional excise duty in the 2023-24 budget. Siddaramaiah proposed to increase the existing rates of the duty on Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) by 20 per cent on all 18 slabs. He also proposed to increase the duty on beer from 175 per cent to 185 per cent.
- With these hikes and effective enforcement and regulatory measures, the revenue collection target for the Excise Department for the year 2023-24 is fixed at Rs 36,000 crore, PTI quoted CM as saying.
- CM said that the Karnataka government would formulate a new education policy, keeping in mind the local social, cultural and economic milieu of the State. The new policy would elevate the higher education standards in the State to the global level and empower youth to compete globally and gain meaningful employment opportunities, as per PTI.
- Siddaramaiah also addressed the menace of fake mark certificates and said that to deal with the problem. He said the government would make it mandatory for students of higher education in the state to get registered in the 'Academic Bank of Credits' and access marks cards and education certificates from the National Academic Depository/Digilocker, reported PTI.
The ongoing assembly session has been witnessing massive unrest since its first day on a range of issues including the poll guarantees of the Congress party. Notably, Congress has already launched three of its five poll guarantees and sought time for implementation of the other two.
On Thursday, the Karnataka Legislative Assembly was thrown into chaos as allegations and counter-allegations flew between the government and the Opposition over a bus driver-cum-conductor's suicide attempt. Former Chief Minister and BJP leader Basavaraj Bommai accused Agriculture Minister N Chaluvarayaswamy of being responsible for the driver's desperate act, reported news agency PTI. Bommai called for an impartial investigation into the matter and demanded the minister's resignation, citing previous instances where resignations were tendered under similar circumstances.
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