BJP govt did nothing for North Karnataka: Siddu

NT Correspondent

Belagavi: Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah has slammed the state government for its lack of interest in the overall development of Karnataka.

Participating in a debate on ‘North Karnataka problems’ on Friday, he said the Dr.D.M. Nanjundappa committee was constituted by S.M. Krishna when he was CM to study regional imbalance and to submit a detailed report in 2002. One of the major recommendations of the Committee was to spend Rs 31,000 crore over a period of eight years on backward and most backward taluks across the state. Out of Rs 31,000 crore, Rs 15,000 crore was to go into various projects and the rest to improve infrastructure.

However, the report was implemented only in 2007-08 and Rs 2,000 crore was released every year till 2016. When the period was over, he further extended it for five years and ordered release of Rs 3,000 crore every year. Based on the Nanjundappa report, Rs 28,080 crore crore has been spent till date. When Atal Behari Vajpayee was Prime Minister, then CM, S.M. Krishna had written to the Union government to give special status to Hyderabad-Karnataka by amending the Constitution under 371 (1). But then Deputy Prime Minister L.K.Advani rejected the proposal which became a reality when Manmohan Singh became PM, he said. The Congress leader said the BJP government had done nothing other than change the name of Hyderabad-Karnataka to ‘Kalyana Karnataka’. Development is still a mirage in Kalyana Karnataka due to lack of commitment. The government has not appointed chairman for the Kalyana Karnataka Area Development Board in the last two and a half years. In such circumstances how can the region be developed, he wondered. “Our government had filled up 30,000 posts in Kalyana Karnataka but not a single post was filled under the current dispensation. In 2021-22, out of the total Rs 1500 crore grant announced, only Rs 378 crore has been released. In the next two months, will it be possible to spend Rs 1,100 crore? The CM had promised Rs 3,000 crore for Kalyana-Karnataka development but has he released it”, he asked.