Karnataka Assembly session to start today

Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah would present the state budget tomorrow, at the beginning of the Assembly session amid indications that mobilising additional resources is a key thrust area of the Congress government.

This would be the second 2013-14 budget as the previous BJP government had already presented one taking a vote-of-account for the expenditure to be incurred for four months-ending July 31 this year. The Congress government, installed almost two months ago, has sought to unveil the "fresh budget".

Siddaramaiah, who has presented as many as seven budgets and kept the Finance portfolio with himself this time, is expected to announce measures to augmenting resources "without hurting the common man".

The chief minister, who devoted considerable amount of time in pre-budget consultations in the past few days, has weighed a number of options to marshal additional resources to fund subsidy schemes entailing huge expenditure.