Congress govt's 'guarantees' in Karnataka: Six months left, Rs 6,000 cr spent so far

Halfway into the current fiscal, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government has spent nearly Rs 6,000 crore on the 'guarantee' schemes -- just 14% of the funds earmarked for them -- even as authorities face "last mile" challenges in beneficiary coverage.

There is also worry that the government may fall short of revenues needed to meet the fiscal commitment. 

This fiscal, the government has set aside Rs 39,815 crore for the five guarantees -- Shakti, Gruha Jyoti, Anna Bhagya, Gruha Lakshmi and Yuva Nidhi -- that helped the Congress storm to power in the Assembly elections. 

Estimated to cost Rs 52,000 crore from the next fiscal, the guarantees have been packaged as welfare economics, especially universal basic income: each household will get an average Rs 4,000-5,000 a month or Rs 48,000 to Rs 60,000 every year, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said.

Two of the biggest guarantees -- Anna Bhagya and Gruha Lakshmi -- currently count 1.93 crore households as beneficiaries and 44% of them are in north Karnataka, according to government data analysed by DH. 

Under Anna Bhagya, every BPL member gets 5 kg rice every month free. Under Gruha Lakshmi, the woman head of a household gets Rs 2,000 every month. 

The CM's native Mysuru district is among the top four districts in terms of coverage under Anna Bhagya and Gruha Lakshmi along with Belagavi, Bengaluru Urban and Tumakuru. 

Gruha Jyoti (free electricity) has covered 1.52 crore connections. 

Shakti, the free bus travel scheme for women, has seen the highest expenditure at 28%. It was the first guarantee to be launched. In all, 67 crore women have benefited. On average, 62 lakh women benefit daily.

Gruha Lakshmi, the most ambitious scheme with an outlay of Rs 17,500 crore, has seen expenditure of just 11%. Of the 1.15 crore beneficiaries, 90 lakh have received the benefit. Payments for 24 lakh women are pending mostly for banking issues. 

"Somehow, we're able to reach a crore beneficiaries. Beyond that, there are problems," Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) L K Atheeq told DH. "Beyond one crore viable beneficiaries, we need to clean up the data to identify duplicates. It'll take some time to stabilise," he said, expressing confidence that expenditure targets will be met for the guarantee schemes.

Yuva Nidhi, the fifth guarantee of unemployment allowance, is expected to kick in from January.