Bengaluru | Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Thursday presented the finance budget of the fiscal year 2018-19 for the state of Karnataka.
The Congress-JD(S) coalition government in its maiden budget gave the farmers of the state a major relief by waiving their loans worth 34,000 crores. In the first stage of the farm loan waiver, defaulted crop loans of farmers up to 31 Dec 2017 will be cleared by the government. Farmers who repaid the loan within the time frame will be encouraged by the government by crediting them the repaid loan amount or Rs 25,000 whichever is less.
CM Kumaraswamy while presenting the budget said, “To facilitate the farmers to avail new loans action will be taken by the government to issue clearance certificate by waiving the arrears form the defaulting account. For this purpose, Rs 6500 crore is earmarked in 2018-19 budget.”
Speaking about the successful scheme of the earlier Congres government, CM Kumaraswamy said, Considering the popularity of Indira Canteens in Bengaluru, action has been taken to open 247 Indira Canteens in all taluks and district headquarters of the state at an expenditure of Rs 211 crores.”
While presenting the budget, Kumaraswamy also said that the state government will give security of women the utmost importance. He pointed out that Karnataka has grown at 8.5% in 2017-18 and agriculture growth clocked at 4.5% in the previous financial year.
The Karnataka government also proposed to increase the rate of tax on petrol from the present 30% to 32% and diesel from 19% to 21% in the budget. This would lead to increase in the price of petrol by Rs.1.14/ltr and diesel by Rs 1.12/ltr
Earlier while speaking to media before presenting the budget, CM Kumaraswamy said “It is a new experience for me as a finance minister. I have taken up this as a challenge to give a surplus budget.”
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