Rahul Gandhi "best PM material": Veerappa Moily

Bengaluru, Apr 21: The Karnataka Government may spare its employees from salary cuts this month despite severe resources crunch it faces following steep fall in revenue collection due to the ongoing lockdown to fight the coronavirus, official sources said on Tuesday.

As of now, there is no problem with April salary and we can manage. But if May also turns out to be a wash-out (in terms of revenue collection), then the situation is going to be very tough, a senior Minister said.

Ministers and members of Karnataka Legislature are taking a 30 per cent pay-cut for a year from April 1 this year. Opposition Congress in the state has vehemently opposed any possible move to cut salaries of government employees.

You just cant even imagine, the Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa had told news agency in an interview earlier this month on the economic impact of the lock-down on the state's finances. Yediyurappa had also said that the government is now not in a position to implement Budget proposals, barring important ones, with all kinds of revenue collections having completely stopped following the lockdown.

The government recently said it proposes to regularise unauthorised properties in the state by imposing penalty, and also auction more than 12,000 corner sites belonging to the Bengaluru Development Authority, as part of resource mobilisation drive.

In the wake of Saudi Arabia's assurance that Masjid al-Haram of Makkah and Masjid an-Nabawi of Madinah will be opened for believers after some days, a message has gone viral on social media claiming that both the holy mosques will open on Ramadan 8 (May 1).

The message which was widely circulated on Facebook and WhatsApp, also contained certain condition such as people should fetch their own prayer mats and that they should not use the washrooms in the mosques. 

Clarification

Meanwhile, the authorities of the two holy mosques, issued a clarification that the claims made in the viral post are false and baseless.

"The message being circulated about the opening date for Haramiain (two holy mosques) for public is completely baseless and false. The suspension of prayers for general public is still in effect," they said in a social media post.

Bengaluru, Apr 11:  Amid nationwide lockdown in the wake of COVID-19, former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Saturday urged the state government to announce a relief package for farmers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday held a video conference with Chief Ministers.

Taking to Twitter, Kumaraswamy wrote, "As the lock down continues, what action plan does the government have to tackle the challenges of ensuring marketing channels for farm produce with timely transport and ensuring uninterrupted supply of essential groceries to towns and cities?"

He later asked the government to act "swiftly and effectively".

"On one hand we see farmers throwing their produce in despair and losing their livelihoods. On the other hand supplies to towns are depleting. This is threatening both lives and livelihoods. The government must act swiftly and effectively," Kumaraswamy tweeted.

"I urge the state government to immediately announce relief package to farmers by way of direct benefit transfer mechanism and purchase all the agricultural produce so as to avoid farmer suicides," he added.

With 40 deaths and 1,035 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, India on Saturday witnessed a sharpest ever increase in coronavirus cases, taking the tally of the infected people in the country to 7,447, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.