K'taka budget: Farmers get something to cheer about

Interest free loans up to Rs 2 lakh; CM moots agri price commission

The new Congress government today announced a slew of measures to please most sections of the society in its very first budget. The chief minister, who presented the revised budget for 2013-14 announced interest free loans for farmers up to Rs 2 lakh and at 1 per cent interest for loans between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh.

Earlier, short-term loan up to Rs 1 lakh came at zero per cent interest and at 1 per cent interest from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh.

“This is an inclusive budget and stress has been laid on agriculture, education, health, infrastructure, rural development, irrigation and energy sectors. We have given ample stress to the infrastructure of Bangalore city,” the chief minister said, immediately after the Budget presentation.

To address the issue of uncertainty in prices of agricultural commodities faced by farmers, the chief minister has announced setting up an “Agricultural Prices Commission” on the lines of a similar body at the Centre. This commission will consist of farmers, agriculture experts and agro-economists. The government will fix suitable prices based on scientifically worked out recommendations of the commission, he said.

To ensure that farmers get the minimum support price, price intervention and support price operation will be started in advance. The amount of revolving fund for this would be enhanced to Rs 1,000 crore this year, he said in his budget speech.

He also announced establishment of Calamity Mitigation Fund with an initial corpus of Rs 500 crore in the department of revenue. This fund will help farmers during the natural disasters like floods, drought and pest attack.

Siddaramaiah also announced measures for schoolgirls, women and transgenders. To encourage enrolment and attendance of girls in first standard in government schools, Rs 2 would be given to girls for each day’s attendance.

The government intends to provide scholarship and free education to students, whose parents are affected with HIV/leprosy, for higher education, according to the budget, which also said that ten sanitary napkin pads would be provided free to 3.25 million girls and women.

A new scheme called “Manaswini” would be introduced to provide monthly pension of Rs 500 to the unmarried women below poverty line who have crossed the age of 40 years and for divorced women below the poverty line.

A new scheme ‘Mythri’ would be launched for providing monthly pension of Rs 500 to transgenders.

Among other major announcements were construction of fishing port in Kulai, Mangalore and Hejamady in Udupi and allocation of Rs 229 crore, distribution of fibre glass boats to 2,000 inland fishermen for the programmes under fisheries department. He also announced Rs 9 crore to tackle Naxal activities in the Karkala region and construction of a truck terminal in Mangalore and a few other places in the state.

He said that the government would spend Rs 9,812 crore for irrigation projects during fiscal 2013-14 and create an irrigation potential of 108,590 hectares and construction of field irrigation channels on 80,000 hectares. He said, the government would also increase the height of the Almatti dam from 519 metres to 524 metres to tap an additional water of 177 tmc in Krishna river basin.