Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy will announce the Karnataka budget with the loan waiver
Ahead of the Karnataka assembly session, the Congress-JDS coordination committee today approved irrigation projects worth Rs 1.25 lakh crore and cleared farm loan waiver, a key political issue, while commissioning a draft report on the common minimum programme or CMP.
At the end of the second coordination committee meeting, JDS general secretary Danish Ali said the CMP has been agreed upon with minor changes and the entire document would be brought out in the form of a booklet.
Karnataka Chief Minister Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, Congress general secretary and Karnataka in-charge KC Venugopal and Mr Ali attended the meeting, which was chaired by former chief minister Siddaramaiah.
The coordination committee of the JDS-Congress had appointed the drafting committee to prepare the CMP.
Some highlights of the CMP are farm loan waiver, whose details would be released by the chief minister in his first budget speech, Mr Ali said.
The CMP has agreed to earmark Rs 1.25 lakh crore for irrigation projects in the next five years besides setting a target of building 20 lakh new houses for the needy. A new sports policy would also be announced, he said.
Another area where the government would focus is skill development with a target of creating one crore jobs in the next five years.
"It will be a full-fledged budget, which will have all these. In addition, the previous Congress government's flagship programmes will continue... We will raise the funds maintaining fiscal discipline," Mr Ali said.
To a query on the deadline for the cut-off date for farm loan waiver, Mr Ali said, "I think it will be better if you can wait for another three days. In the budget speech, the chief minister will reveal it."
It will be a total farm loan waiver, comprising both nationalised and cooperative banks, he said. To a question on cabinet expansion, Mr Ali said it might take place soon.
"Tomorrow, the new assembly session is starting... just after that there may be cabinet expansion. It was not discussed today but overall feeling is that it may happen at the earliest," said Mr Ali.