Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will set a record on Friday by presenting his 14th budget as the finance minister.
Siddaramaiah surpasses Ramakrishna Hedge who had presented 13 budgets.
Siddaramaiah’s budget will subsume the one BJP’s Basavaraj Bommai presented in February. The size of Siddaramaiah’s budget is expected to touch Rs 3.35 lakh crore, up from Bommai’s Rs 3.09 lakh crore.
'Guarantee' task
The budget this year poses a unique challenge to Siddaramaiah in mobilising resources for the implementation of the Congress’ five guarantees while making space for other development works.
It remains to be seen if Siddaramaiah takes some tough decisions such as levying additional excise duty on liquor and increasing the state’s borrowings.
“A state budget, unlike the Centre, has limitations as the taxes that can be levied are limited under the GST regime. The debt burden of the state has gone up and increasing revenue is a huge challenge,” a senior Congress leader told DH. “Siddaramaiah will also have to give a deep thought on how he will negotiate unemployment and price rise, which are not the state’s creations.”
Siddaramaiah’s first budget was in 1994-95 under the HD Deve Gowda government. By his own admission, he didn’t know much about finance back then. It was Gowda who pushed him to become the finance minister.
As a novice, his nervousness did not go unnoticed by the media. “At that time, Lankesh Patrike carried an article wondering how someone who couldn’t count sheep would present the state’s budget,” Siddaramaiah recalled at an event recently.
With rigorous reading and interaction with experts, he was able to gain knowledge in the domain and soon after the budget presentation, an English national daily lauded the “pragmatism” in his budget, he narrated.
Siddaramaiah has over the years taken pride in his attention to detail and fiscal prudence. On many an occasion, he underlined how he has always managed to present a revenue-surplus budget.
“His budgets have always been progressive with surplus revenue and good programmes,” former minister and Haliyal MLA RV Deshpande said about his long-time associate.
The Congress’ guarantees are estimated to require Rs 50,000-60,000 crore annually. In this budget, Siddaramaiah will have to set aside Rs 40,000 crore for the guarantees, according to one estimate.