BENGALURU: Imagine having your Aadhaar card say you were born in ‘XX Enterprises’ village. Or for that matter, a village named after any other company. The state government seems to be thinking that changing names of villages could perhaps help the flood-hit areas. It has hit upon this novel scheme to help the victims.
Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa declared on Wednesday that the state government was ready to rename villages after a business house or an industry that donates money generously towards rescue, relief and rehabilitation of flood victims.
This privilege will be accorded to those companies which donate more than Rs 10 crore. With more than 200 villages in 21 districts being badly affected, the CM feels his ‘name’ scheme could help in rebuilding villages. The announcement was made at a meeting with industrialists in Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday.
Despite being a single-man government, the CM also held a cabinet meeting and took some key decisions. Given the damage the devastating floods have caused in parts of Karnataka, the cabinet approved additional relief of Rs 10,000 crore for the affected regions.
The government will allocate Rs 3,800 crore while the remaining Rs 6,200 crore will come from NDRF funds. While three other decisions were limited to development works in Shivamogga including a railway line between Shivamogga-Shikharipur-Ranebennur at a cost of Rs 956 crore, the cabinet also decided to allot land in Bengaluru for setting up a waste-to-energy facility. It was decided to lease 20 acres in Kannahalli under BBMP limits to Sitaram Enterprises Pvt Ltd for a period of 30 years to set up the facility.