BENGALURU: Union minister Pralhad Joshi accused the Congress government of making baseless allegations against the Centre to divert attention from the internal rift between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, and the state government’s failure to implement its guarantee schemes.
The minister said the state Congress leaders’ allegations of disparity in the release of funds are baseless. In Karnataka, 38 per cent of the budget is still unspent in mid-February and they only show the accounts in March, he said, adding that in the Centre, the PM holds meetings every month to review the status.
The Union minister said 34 per cent (Rs 5,727 crore) of the funds allocated for various centrally-sponsored projects remain unspent and this information was from the state government’s dashboard. The money given by the Centre to the state agriculture department and various other departments was also not properly spent, he said.
Joshi said they have given more funds to the state under the NDRF, compared to the UPA government. He said the Finance Commissions have their parameters, and in 2016-17, when the Finance Commission officials visited the state, the Siddaramaiah government failed to do its job by convincing them by providing adequate information.
In the last 10 years of the Narendra Modi government, the grant amount released to the state so far is Rs 2.36 lakh crore, and there is still one quarter remaining. He said the state got Rs 2.85 lakh crore in tax devolution in the last decade.
The minister accused Siddaramaiah of engaging in false propaganda against the Centre.