There is nothing new for Bangalore. The CM’s announcement that Cauvery water will flow into new BBMP areas by March 2012 had been made public by the BWSSB a day earlier.
It rained sops for farmers on Thursday as chief minister BS Yeddyurappa presented a Rs17,857-crore separate agriculture budget along with the general budget in the state assembly.
But the budget for 2011-12 has little to cheer for urbanites, except for increased allocation for addressing the commuting woes of Bangaloreans.
As promised, farmers will get crop loans at 1% interest and crores of students from farmers’ families, who could not pursue higher education, interest-free education loans. Agriculture and allied sectors have received a whopping Rs17,857 crore out of total budget allocation of Rs65,034 crore.
Oranic farming, biofuels, rejuvenation of tanks, huge allocation for extending irrigation facilities in Krishna basin and providing quality power for irrigation have received liberal allocation in the budget with a hope of taking agricultural growth to over 4%.
In a balancing act not to miff the urban electorate, Yeddyurappa has proposed a total of `4,770 crore to be spent on development of infrastructure in Bangalore. Some of the Bangaloreans could hope for fulfilling their dream of having a BDA site as the budget assures completion of Nadaprabhu Kempe Gowda, Arkavathy and Shivaram Karanth Layouts with an allocation of `750 crore and also 30,000 BDA houses for weaker sections.
In a first of its kind recreation initiative in the country, Bangalore will see eight new integrated parks and entertainment centres. Metro work will be speeded up with an allocation of `683 crore and `25 crore has been provided to implement Bus Rapid Transit System from Hebbal to Silk Board.
The overall expenditure for 2011-12 would be Rs85,319 crore which is an increase of 21.7% over the budget of Rs70,063 crore. The chief minister has shown it as a Rs294-crore surplus budget with a Plan outlay of Rs38,070 crore.
The chief minister has refrained from imposing any new tax burden on the common man. He has extended tax exemption on paddy, rice, wheat, pulses and products of rice and wheat for one more year and tax on kitchen utensils reduced from 13.5% to 5%.
Except for jewellery and liquor, the chief minister has left almost all other commodities and services from additional tax burden. VAT on jewellery and articles of gold and other noble metals, precious and semi-precious stones has been raised from 1% to 2%. VAT on good currently available at 13.5% has been raised to 14%. Additional excise duty on all liquors has gone up from 10% to 20%
Yeddyurappa hopes to mobilise additional resource of `1020 crore through revision of various tax rates and has expressed confidence of mobilizing additional resources through better tax compliance and internal resource generation.
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