HDK’s maiden budget announces farm loan waiver, increase in tax on fuel

coastaldigest.com web desk
July 5, 2018

Bengaluru, Jul 5: Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy is now presenting the Congress-JDS coalition government’s maiden budget. Here are the live updates:

16% of budget set aside for loan waiver

Kumaraswamy starts his budget speech at Vidhana Soudha. He announces formation of a farmers' consultation committee comprising of progressive farmers. He allocates ₹50 crore for a zero budget natural farming on the lines of Andhra Pradesh.

The focus, he says, will be on making on farming productive and ensure good prices.

Total budget size is ₹2.13 lakh crore, of which ₹34,000 crore will be set aside for the loan waiver in the budget, says the CM.

Fuel prices to go up

Kumaraswamy has included a host of tax hikes in the budget, which he has argued as necessary steps to “augment resource mobilisation” towards fulfilling the promise of loan waiver to farmers.

The budget has increased rate of tax on petrol from the present 30% to 32%, hiking petrol prices in the State by ₹1.14 per litre and rate of tax on diesel from the present 19% to 21% hiking its price by ₹1.12 per litre.

The Chief Minister said even with this hike the prices of petrol and diesel would be lower in Karnataka when compared to the neighbouring States.

School reforms

The Chief Minister also announces a package for repair of schools. He announces starting English medium government schools.

About 48,000 schools will have biometrics, within 3 years, to monitor teachers and students. And 1,000 Government schools to have English medium sections, Mr. Kumaraswamy says.

Arounf 8,530 schools that have low enrollment will be merged with schools within a kilometre. Sports will be introduced as a subject in higher education classes.

A university for sports to be set up in Tumakuru and a Homeland Security University will come up in Shivamogga. Rs. three crore has been set aside for a tourism university at Hampi on PPP model.

Overall, education department gets over ₹26,800 crore, 11% increase from February budget.

'Mathrushri scheme' for pregnant women

The CM announced a new scheme, named 'Mathrushri', to transfer money directly to the bank accounts of pregnant women from BPL families. ₹350 crore will be set aside for the same and it will be implemented from November 1.

Meanwhile, Anna Bhagya, the flashing scheme of former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, gets a cut. The provision for 7 kg free rice has been reduced to 5 kg.

He also announced ₹25 crore for various religious institutions in the State, spread across castes.

More details are awaited

Comments

Suresh
 - 
Thursday, 5 Jul 2018

Loan waiving is big thing. Will see whether they can make practical or just in papers

Ibrahim
 - 
Thursday, 5 Jul 2018

HDK offering more burden to people by hiking fuel tax

Shahir
 - 
Thursday, 5 Jul 2018

English medium govt seems to be good plan but along with tha should promote Kannada and Kannanda should be compulsory

Kumar
 - 
Thursday, 5 Jul 2018

Instead of tax on oil will be double attack on people. Modi govt increasing by weekily.

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News Network
June 11,2020

Bengaluru, Jun 11: Most COVID-19 deaths in Karnataka occur when infected elderly people, those with Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) or any other symptoms delay reaching designated hospitals, a top official said.

Munish Moudgil, chief of COVID-19 War Room in the state, said most of those infected with the virus are brought to COVID-19 designated hospitals at a very late stage and recovery then becomes extremely tough.

He said about 65 per cent of those killed suffered from SARI and are aged above 60.

The death rate due to SARI is 43 per cent for those in the 40-60 age group, he said, releasing data on coronavirus deaths, to reporters.

In the same age group, the mortality due to Influenza Like Illness (ILI) was 17.4 per cent, whereas it is 11.1 per cent among people aged above 60 .

He said 25 per cent of symptomatic patients aged above 60 die due to the virus, while it was 10.7 per cent in the 40-60 age group.

The fatalities among those aged 60 is high even if they are asymptomatic, Mr Moudgil, who is secretary in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, said.

He said the average number of days spent at these hospitals by those who recovered is about 15 days, compared to 3.5 days for those who died of the virus.

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"Hence persons who are elderly and who have comorbidities or who have SARI must reach designated Covid hospitals at the earliest," Mr Moudgil said.

As of date, Karnataka has reported 69 COVID-19 deaths As many as 6,041 people have tested positive for COVID-19, including 2,862 discharges and 3,108 active cases.

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News Network
April 22,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 22: With seven more people tested positive for COVID-19, the total number of cases now stands at 425 as of date in Karnataka, informed state health department on Wednesday.

Out of the total COVID-19 cases, 17 people have died and 129 have been discharged.
These seven new cases came to light in the last 24 hours.

With 1383 more cases and 50 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, India's total number of positive COVID-19 cases stands at 19,984, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday.

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News Network
February 26,2020

Feb 26: The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday claimed that it prevented Karnataka from discussing the contentious Mekedatu reservoir issue at the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) meeting held in New Delhi.

Besides the representatives of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka at the fifth meeting of CWMA, presided over by Central Water Commission Chairman R K Jain, officials of Kerala and Puducherry also participated.

CWMA member and TN PWD Secretary K Manivasan told reporters after the meeting that the state government prevented Karnataka from discussing the dam issue by pointing out the pending petitions in the Supreme Court against the project filed by the E Palaniswami government.

"We have told participants of the meeting that Mekedatu reservoir will be against the interests of Tamil Nadu and its farmers. Our consistent stand is that it should not be built at any cost. Finally the issue was not discussed in the meeting," Manivasan said.

The Mekedatu reservoir is proposed to be constructed by Karnataka across Cauvery river near Mekedatu, about 110 km from Bengaluru, in Kanakapura taluk.

It was first proposed along with Shivanasamudra hydro power project at Shimsa in 2003 with an intention to use the water for a hydro power station and supply drinking water to Bengaluru city. It was designed to store 67 tmc feet of water.

While Tamil Nadu is claiming that the construction of a balancing reservoir will disturb Cauvery water flow to the state affecting irrigation, Karnataka says the project is basically designed to take care of the drinking water needs of Bengaluru after releasing water to Tamil Nadu as per the quantum specified by the Cauvery water disputes tribunal.

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