The budget presented by CM Siddaramaiah is full of hollow statements with no clarity on financial allocation. This first budget by Congress govt has laid a solid foundation to push the state towards fiscal crisis in coming years, said former Minister Dr.K.Sudhakar.

The budget is highly disappointing for Bayaluseeme districts viz, Chikkaballapur, Kolar and Bengaluru Rural. Our government had announced the construction of a hi-tech international flower market and kept aside Rs.100 crores in previous budget. But today’s budget has no mention about it. The budget has not provided any financial allocation for tertiary treatment of KC Valley and HN Valley project water. Yettinahole projects has only got lip service and there is no announcement on time bound completion or financial outlay. Congress has promised to complete Yettinahole within 2 years in its manifesto but looking at the state of affairs, it won’t be completed even in next 5 years. Overall this is a budget full of hollow statements with no clarity on financial outlay and time bound completion of projects.

CM Siddaramaiah’s budget speech sounded more like a political speech rather than a vision statement for Karnataka. CM Siddaramaiah should have behaved like a statesman when he spoke about Covid pandemic crisis. It is the PM Modi’s leadership which steered the country out of the pandemic. For more than two years the centre provided 10 kgs of foodgrains per month to over 80 crore people under PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana. Crores of people got free treatment under Ayushman Bharat scheme. Centre spent Rs 2,141 crores to provide 9.88 crore doses of Covid vaccine to Karnataka free of cost. Instead of showing his statesmanship CM Siddaramaiah behaved like a desperate and helpless politician.

Revoking an important national policy like NEP which is crucial in shaping the future of children and youth of our country shows Congress’ cheap mindset. This is a reverse gear government and the state’s development will also be put in reverse mode.