Nirmala Sitharaman, the union finance minister, declared that the centre will give Karnataka’s drought-prone districts ₹5,300 crore in aid for irrigation. Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union Finance Minister, said on Wednesday that the government will contribute ₹5,300 crores to irrigation projects in Karnataka’s drought-prone areas. During her presentation of the union budget for the fiscal year 2023–2024 in Parliament, Sitharaman was speaking. Before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, this is the final full-year budget. The center’s second objective, “reaching the last mile,” was providing the poll-bound southern state with the ₹5,300 crore in aid. The central Karnataka area, which is prone to drought, would receive aid from the centre worth ₹5,300 crore, Sitharaman declared. The primary goals in the budget will be inclusive development, infrastructure and investment, “unleashing the potential”, green growth, youth power, and the financial industry. The finance minister is anticipated to adjust income-tax slabs to relieve the middle class. It has encouraged the Karnataka BJP branch and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai as they get ready for the assembly elections in roughly three months. The party claimed that the finance minister’s declaration satisfied a demand that had been made five decades before.
In the districts of Chikkamagalur, Chitradurga, Tumakuru, and Davanagere—which are drought-prone—the Upper Bhadra is a significant lift irrigation project. The four districts, which account for 29 of Karnataka’s 224 assembly seats, are very important to the party because both Congress and JD-S are well-represented in the majority of them. Because Old Mysuru, Mumbai-Karnataka, and Hyderabad-Karnataka are the areas covered by the majority of irrigation projects, Upper Bhadra has been essential for the rain-dependent dry regions. Bommai said he was pleased that the Center announced such a significant monetary assistance for the project since he had always wanted the Center to regard Upper Bhadra as a national initiative. According to him, it would irrigate more than 100,000 hectares of agricultural spread throughout the four districts.Prior to the assembly elections in Kerala and Tamil Nadu two years prior, the finance minister had similarly planned expensive highway projects for those two states.
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