5 Guarantees: CM calls meeting today

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has convened a meeting of the deputy chief minister and all ministers at Vidhana Soudha tomorrow (Wednesday) for a detailed discussion on the five guarantee schemes promised by the Congress Party in its election manifesto, and to announce its implementation from June 1.

According to information available here, the meeting has been scheduled for 12 noon. Deputy Chief Minister D.K.Shivakumar and all the ministers have been asked to attend the meeting without fail for the discussion on the five poll promises.

After the meeting, the CM is expected to make certain announcements regarding the implementation of the five guarantees from Thursday. On Monday, the CM held a meeting with senior officials of various departments regarding the implementation of the guarantee schemes and computed details on the total cost involved in its implementation.

According to them, it would cost around Rs 55000 crore to Rs 60,000 crore every year. The officials have given various suggestions to Siddaramaiah who asked them to submit everything in the form of a report within 24 hours. The CM would place the report given by the officials before the meeting of ministers and seek their suggestions on the guarantee schemes implementation.

Already, a few ministers have held informal meetings with the officials of the departments concerned and collected details on the poll promise implementation. Even that report would also be placed before the meeting. With pressure from the opposition parties mounting on the Congress government, the CM and his team had to introduce the guarantee schemes from June 1.

The BJP has threatened to launch an agitation from June 1 if the Congress Government fails to implement the schemes from Thursday. In fact, Siddaramaiah, during the poll campaigns, had promised the fulfillment of all poll promises within 24 hours of coming to power in the State.

Now, it has been over two weeks, and naturally, people are becoming restless and have expressed their doubts about their implementation. The government had to urgently come out with the important promise of 200 units of free power to every household as consumers across the State are refusing to pay electricity bills