Karnataka wants Rs 25,800 crore grants

Karnataka Govt urged the 13th Finance Commission to recommend release of Rs 25,800 crore grants and more devolution of funds through the Commission rather than the planning commission route.

Karnataka Government on Friday urged the 13th Finance Commission to recommend release of Rs 25,800 crore grants and more devolution of funds through the Commission rather than the planning commission route. During an interaction with the commission headed by Dr Vijay Kelkar, the BJP Government pointed out that the state faced a number of "special problems" including regional imbalance in North Karnataka and had to address the infrastrucutre needs of the ever growing Bangalore City. The city is a home to 743 MNC IT companies and 131 BT firms and accounted for 57,000 crore software exports annually, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, who is also the state's Finance Minister told the Commission here. There was a need to augment the drinking water supply in the city by 476 million litres daily by 2011-12. At present as against the requirement of Rs 1219 MLD only 870 MLD was being supplies and the city faced a shortfall of 349 MLD, he noted. The city's infrastuructre probelms required Rs 8,500 crore grants, Yeddyurappa said.

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"We suggest that 40 per cent of the Central taxes should be devolved to the states. The overall limit on the transfer of central resources should also be raised to 50 per cent", Yeddyurapps demanded.

During the past one year, the state was adversely affected to an extent of Rs 1,000 crore due to non-revision of royalty on minerals by the Centre, he pointed out.