BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday expressed concern over increasing corruption, despite efforts to curb it.
Addressing the senior IAS, IPS, and Forest Service officers, CM Siddaramaiah said that corruption, instead of reducing, is increasing, despite efforts to check it. The Chief Minister said that he would not talk much about corruption and the election system has become bad. “If we all work as per our conscience, we can reach the target or at least make an honest effort to walk in that direction,” the Chief Minister added.
Siddaramaiah sought senior officers’ cooperation to improve the economic condition of the people and address regional imbalance. Everyone needs to work with a commitment to bring in a positive change in society, Siddaramaiah said.
He hit out at the Opposition for accusing the State Government of not allocating adequate funds for development. The CM said that they do not have funds for the new works as the previous BJP government had approved works to the tune of Rs 2,09,000 crore without making provision in the budget. They called the tenders, and fixed agencies and started the work without allocating funds, he said. There are Rs 29,000 crore pending bills and that is the major reason, Siddaramaiah said.
The CM said that though Karnataka is in second place in the country in tax collection, the funds from the Centre are not adequate. Despite all that they are providing funds for development work and the officials must ensure that the funds allocated are used effectively, he said.
The departments that generate revenue and the departments that spend the money on development works should work together responsibly to ensure more development in the state, the CM said.
He said that the State Government is committed to addressing the regional imbalance and constituted a committee headed by economist Govind Rao to look at the measures taken based on the Nanjundappa committee report. The government spent Rs 35,000 crore for the development of the Kalyana Karnataka region, Siddaramaiah said.
He told officials that there will be ups and downs in life, and they should always need to work with confidence to face the challenges.