Bommai to table Karnataka budget on Feb 17

Bengaluru: The budget session of the Karnataka legislature would start on February 10 and Chief Minister Basvaraj Bommai would table the budget on February 17, State Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said on Friday.

“It has been decided to conduct the budget session from February 10 with an address by Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot and the Chief Minister will table the budget on February 17. The business advisory committee will decide on the duration of the session,” Madhuswamy briefed reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

The Cabinet decided also to regularise quarrying for those who are into manual mining and mistakenly carry out their activities in different areas.

The government decided to increase the cess from sugar producers.

The cess for factories with 2,500 tonne of Cane per Day (TCD) capacity has been increased from existing Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000.

Factories having capacity between 2,500 TCD and 5,000 TCD, the cess has been increased from Rs 15,000 to Rs one lakh and, the factories above 5,000 TCDs, which have been paying a cess of Rs 25,000 has been increased to Rs 1.5 lakh.

Those factories above 15,000 TCD capacity would pay a cess of Rs two lakh.

“The existing cess was prevalent for the past 30 to 40 years due to which we were facing difficulty to run the institution. So we increased the cess,” Madhuswamy said.

The decision to increase cess was taken to continue the operations of S Nijalingappa Sugar Institute for the research and development works in sugar and sugarcane, the Minister explained.

The Cabinet decided also to provide a shared capital of Rs 54.6 crore to the Karnataka State Finance Commission (KSFC), Madhuswamy said.

It also decided to extend the one-time settlement of the loans pending towards the KSFC after 2003, he added.

The benefit of one-time settlement was restricted only to those loans taken before October 31, 2003.

According to Madhuswamy, the KSFC has a due to the tune of Rs 345 crore from the defaulters comprising of 127.4 crore principal amount and Rs 217.6 crore interest.