No substantive issues tackled

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ENARADA , Bangalore

By MATHIHALLI MADAN MOHAN

Except for creating a personal record as the person who has presented a record number of eight budgets in Karnataka, the maiden budget presented by Mr. Siddaramaiah hardly has anything to crow about.  The budget is more a routine allocations, with no attempts being made to tackle the substantive policy issues.

It has come as a total disappointment to the knowledgeable sources, who expected Mr. Siddaramaiah, to put in his experience to lay road map for proper development of the state, which has been badly bit by the mis-governance or the non-governance of the previous regime.

But instead of moving away from the beaten track, he has adopted a humdrum approach and has merely chosen to tinker with the budget presented by the previous government by Mr. Jagadish Shettar of the BJP. The only notable feature has been that he has been able to put a full stop on the policy of previous government in doling out grants to the religious mutts.

One can certainly understand the difficulties of Mr. Siddaramaiah in going in for a budget when nearly one fourth of the financial year is over. But nothing prevented him from unveiling the path which would be treaded by his government in a time bound manner. Instead he indulged in rhetoric to indulge in BJP baiting, forgetting the fact, that the runaway approach of the BJP was aided by a lackadaisical approach of the Congress which was sitting in opposition as the principal opposition party.   His criticism about the financial health of the state government sounds rather hollow, since it is on this basis he had announced a slew of concessions, including the pet scheme of providing a one kg a rupee scheme, which between themselves would cost exchequer a hopping Rs. 5800 crores as he has himself admitted while replying to question during the session the other day.  He has refrained from imposing any fresh taxes but would raise resources through better tax collection efforts. It is clear that these are among the gimmicks to woo the voters during the forthcoming polls to loksabha.

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The budget is known more for what he has not said that what has been said on some of the important development issues which are not being implemented in the manner in which they ought to have been.

1.     Nanjundappa Committee Report: The High Power Committee on Removal of Regional Imbalances, appointed by the Congress government headed by Mr. Krishna (1999-2004) gave its report in 2002. identifying 134 taluks as backward, more backward and most backward, of which the bulk of taluks came under the Northern Karnataka. It recommended an additional investment of Rs. 15,000 crores during the eight year time frame to create a level playing field. Krishna government dithered and so also was the Congress led coalition headed by Dharam Singh. Though taken up for implementation in 2007 five years later, both the release of funds and implementation has been totally unsatisfactory and delay has been taking away the efficicacy of the additionality of investment. As a brain child and commitment of the party, it ought to have been primary responsibility   to ensure effective implementation, since it is back in the saddle on its own stream after a lapse of nine years. But Mr. Siddaramaiah has no word to say on this.

2.     Special funds available for the development of backward areas from the Central Government:   Thanks to the latest amendment to the Art.371 of the Constitution, special flow of funds for the development of the most backward area of Hyderabad Karnataka is on the anvil. But the budget does not make a mention of the plans by the state government on how to implement this through the special board to the constituted.

3.     Future of Hyderabad Karnataka Development Board:  This is a development board, which came into being in the nineties, much before the Nanjundappa Committee was constituted and the Constitution was amended for the special central grants for the area. But the working of the Board has been rather unsatisfactory. The Nanjudappa Committee’s recommendation for the abolition of the Board along with other area development boards had been rejected by the state government more on political grounds than anything else. The question now is that with the availability of funds under Art. 371 J and under the Special Development Plan based on the recommendations of the Nanjudappa committee being made available, whether the continuation of the HKDB has become redundant. The new government has allowed the uncertainty to linger on.

4.     Decentralised administration through panchayat raj system: This is a flagship programme of the Congress party at the national level, which has been under implementation since the eighties, much before the 73rd and 74th. But with the palpable lack of commitment on the part of the political parties at the state level not excluding Congress, the experiment has been limping in Karnataka. The Congress government headed by Krishna brought about comprehensive amendment to the Panchayat Raj Act in 2003 giving more powers and finances to the rural local bodies. The coalition government headed by Mr. Dharam Singh took a historic step in 2004 to give effect to the same.  It was during this period, when Siddaramaiah was the Deputy Chief Minister holding finance portfolio  introduced the system of providing a special window  for the panchayat raj institutions in the annual budget, The two government  which succeeded, namely the Kumaraswamy led  BJP-JDs coalition and the BJP government headed by Mr. Yeddyurappa and others hardly carried the experiment further as a result of which the powers  and finances t transferred to the panchayat bodies have practically remained on paper making a mockery of the decentralized experiment. It was expected that Siddaramaiah would address himself to the problem, since the experiment is a Congress programme. The budget presented by him remained silent on this.

5.     The Congress which had been bashing the BJP for lack of administrative discipline, has failed to announce its plans on how to restore it.

Besides there is a legacy of problems which have turned out to be knotty and complicated because of had handling, which the new government is required to sort out if not to solve them to the satisfaction but for preventing them from getting further complicated.

The classic case in the genre has been the river disputes on Krishna and Cauvery and the latest on Mahadayi is adding its share to it. The problem has been that there is no state policy evolved on the basis of consensus, identifying the goals, fixing priorities and putting into action plan for achieving the targets, which any state government which assumes office is duty bound to pursue.  But that has not happened. Each government pursues its policies depending on the political mileage it offers. As a result, the  utilization of the share of water  and pursuing the cases before tribunals depends on the whims and fancies of the party in power.

In Krishna water dispute, it has not been possible for the state to fully utilise the share allocated under the first tribunal headed by Justice Bachawat as a result of which  even after thirteen years ever since the deadline was over, the state is no way near achieving the target, allowing by default  unused water to flow  into Andhra Pradesh all these days. Under the circumstances,  the  utilisation of the additional share offered by the second tribunal becomes a mere dream. Without addressing themselves to basic problems the governments regularly go in making routine allocation and the present government has also done the same thing.

In Cauvery, after the  tribunal gave its award, and the Central Government notifying the same, the Karnataka finds it in bind, not knowing where to go and how to proceed. Here also the approach to the utlisation of the allocated quota of water appears to be casual. While crying hoarse that the injustice has been done by all the concerned to Karnataka, governments have done preciously little to ensure utilization, and again allowing the unutilized water to flow into Tamilnadu, with the Karnataka reservoirs in Cauvery valley acting as storage reservoirs of Karnataka.

On the corruption issue, the  Congress which had said a lot while in opposition, has suddenly turned silent and there is no move to grant suo motto powers to Lokayukta to investigate charges and also in granting permission for prosecuting the officials caught during the raids of the Lokayukta. The dilly dallying continues merrily.

(Posted on July 29, 2013 @ 5pm)

(Author is a Senior Journalist and Columnist.  Mobile: +91 94480 74872     Email : madan.mm@gmail.com)

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