Did Cong Govt in Karnataka Turn Deaf Ear to Finance Dept Advice Against Gruha Lakshmi Scheme?

The Karnataka government’s ambitious schemes, including Gruha Lakshmi, has come under the scanner for ignoring the alarms raised by the finance department about the fiscal discipline of the state.

The finance department objections accessed by News18 shows that the Congress government was going for populist measure despite department’s concerns over fiscal discipline. The department in June made it clear that “it’s not possible to provide such enormous amount of funds every year for the Gruha Lakshmi scheme”.

The scheme, which aims to provide Rs 2,000 to woman head of every household every month, is expected to benefit 1.28 crore. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the budget for this year has allocated Rs 24,166 crore for the scheme.

The department further insisted that the scheme be extended only to BPL families but the government has refused to implement the conditions allowing both BPL and APL families to apply.

The department wanted to exclude Income Tax payees, GST & Professionals Tax payers, people holding more than 5 acres, those having an income of over 1.2 lakh per annum, citizens owning a four-wheeler and government employees. It has allowed women from both Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Above Poverty Line (APL) households to apply for the scheme as long as they or their husbands are income tax-payers.

“Before this election itself, the BJP said the guarantees cannot be given as it is. Somehow they (Congress) wanted to win this election, so without asking anybody they did this. Siddaramaiah should’ve known all these details, now the finance department is giving all conditions because they have to work under stipulated guidelines. Siddaramaiah has presented budget 14 times did he not know all these things?” questioned BJP MLC Chalavadi Narayanaswamy

Side-tracking the finance department’s concerns, the Congress has got back at the BJP for leaving the state coffers dry. “Who is talking about the discipline of finances? BJP is the one who pushed the state of Karnataka for borrowing loan of 2.6 lakh crore. To be frank, during the elections, they gave work orders of more than 2 lakh crore. Because of the wrongdoing of the BJP under the leadership of Bommai and Yediyurappa, there is indiscipline now. Siddaramaiah is trying to put finances on track, we will be on track in a very short time,” argued Congress MLC Nagaraj Yadav.

The registration for the scheme began on July 19, and the government intends to transfer the money to the beneficiary account from August 17.