Bengaluru: A cash-strapped Karnataka Government on Thursday steeply hiked prices of petrol, diesel and liquor to shore up revenue to aid a tattered agriculture sector and those hit by floods.
Presenting the State budget for 2020-21, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa proposed a 3% increase in VAT on petrol and diesel from April 1. He also proposed a 6% jump in excise duty on Indian Made Liquor (IML) in all 18 slabs.
The hike comes at a time when the central government has been consistently denying additional aid for the flood-hit.
Presenting his seventh budget, the Karnataka Chief Minister admitted at the outset that his government's top priority would be agriculture and rehabilitation of the poor badly hit by last year's floods.
The budget has set aside Rs500 crore for works related to Mahadayi irrigation.
Last week, the central Government issued a notification on sharing the waters of the inter-state Mahadayi river among Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra. It sought to implement the Mahadayi water disputes tribunal's August 2018 judgment, allocating 13.42 tmcft of water from the river to Karnataka.
The CM admitted that revenue collection has fallen far below expectations due to the economic slowdown and reduction in devolution of central funds to the state under GST regime. As a remedy, he proposed a cut in expenses in some departments.
For the first time, the state government has come up with a child friendly budget. "As many as 279 programmes involving Rs36,340 crore are proposed in the budget for the 2020-21 which consists of Rs15.28 % of the total volume of the budget.”
He said the current budget highlights the commitment of the BJP government towards all round development of children in the state.
Students have something to cheer as Yediyurappa announced that two Saturdays in a month will be observed as bagless days.
Karnataka also proposes to set up a woman safety portal to ensure that all the programmes of the Department of Women and Child Development are delivered transparently. In another novel move, the state government has decided to conduct a baseline survey of transgenders throughout the state.
