Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president and the former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa has alleged that the finances of the State is in a shambles and the instability in the government has demoralised the bureaucracy leading to a shortfall in resource mobilisation by key departments.
He told presspersons here on Saturday that the shortfall in the Excise Department alone was more than Rs. 1,000 crore.
Expressing apprehension over achieving the plan targets this year, Mr. Yeddyurappa said that the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation and other transport corporations were running at a loss and this year’s loss would be more than Rs. 2,000 crore.
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“With the reduction in prices of petroleum products, there is no valid reason for these corporations to suffer losses. This only exposed the lack of control over these corporations by the government and the failure to plug leakages.”
Mr. Yeddyurappa alleged that besides curtailing schemes such as the Bhagyalakshmi scheme for girl children and the Sandhya Suraksha pension scheme for senior citizens, launched by the BJP, the government was depriving funds for development works and budgeted works too.
The Swarna Grama Yojna for providing basic infrastructure to villages in phases was being denied funds.
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The fifth instalment for the scheme had not been released in Kalaburagi district, Mr.Yeddyurappa alleged.
The funds to the urban local bodies too were being denied.
Mr. Yeddyurappa reiterated the demand for a White Paper on the finances of the State. He said that the government was misleading the people by claiming that an additional Rs. 400 crore had been released to the Hyderabad Karnataka Region Development Board (HKRDB). He said that the HKRDB had only spent Rs 1.2 crore so far out of the Rs. 600 crore earmarked for 2014-15 in the budget.