Archives for February 2023

BENGALURU: Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday called the recent Union Budget development-oriented and said it has met the State Government’s expectations in all key sectors. Addressing the media here, Bommai said the biggest challenge before his government is to give matching grants for the schemes announced which will be done in the state budget to be presented on February 17.

He further said that the Central assistance of Rs 5,300 crore announced for the Upper Bhadra Project will come without any conditions. Bommai said that as per the State Government’s expectations, the Union Budget presented by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has stressed on priority sectors like rural development, agriculture, Railways and infrastructure along with housing and irrigation.

“Our demand was to get more grants for sectors like agriculture financing and rural infrastructure which we have got. Also, we had asked for priority to be given to rural infrastructure. This has been done through Jal Jeevan Mission and PM Awas Yojna,” Bommai said.

On the Mekedatu project, the CM said the then Congress government committed a mistake in the initial stage of preparing the Detailed Project Report (DPR). “When they prepared the DPR, they had said there was no issue… but now it is before the Supreme Court. We have allocated funds for the project. If the Supreme Court allows (to go ahead with the project) and if we get approval for DPR, we will take up the work,” he said.

The CM also said the Union Budget has increased grants to several schemes. “Skill development for youth was one of our concerns… the budget has given priority to it. It also allocated Rs 2.4 lakh crore for Railways. Also, the allocation for MGNREGA has not decreased. Such steps will help Karnataka,” he said.

On Namma Metro works, Bommai said that the government is preparing DPR for Phase-4 which will provide Metro service to rural areas of Bengaluru. Bommai also hailed the budget for sanctioning Rs 5,300 crore in assistance for the Upper Bhadra Project. There was a demand for the project since the 1960s, but was initiated during the BJP regime led by BS Yediyurappa in 2008, he added.  

Hitting out at the Opposition’s apprehension regarding the announcement in the budget, Bommai said the Upper Bhadra project has a status ‘national project’ today, and without any conditions Rs 5,300 crore has been allocated for it in the budget by the Modi government.

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha proceedings were adjourned till 2 pm on Friday due to opposition protests demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe into the fraud-allegation-triggered rout in Adani Group company stocks.

Soon after the House met for the day, opposition members were on their feet shouting slogans and demanding a probe into the tanking of the Adani Group scrips and sought a probe into the business practices of the corporate giant.

Speaker Om Birla appealed to members to participate in the discussions during the Question Hour, which he termed as significant.

He said the House will take up the Motion of Thanks to the president for her address at the beginning of the Budget session.

Birla said as it was the first address to the joint sitting of the House by the country’s first tribal woman president, all members should participate in it.

He said he was ready to give the opposition enough time to raise their issues if they give proper notice.

However, an unrelenting opposition continued their protests and sloganeering, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the proceedings till 2 pm.

Adani Group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after the US short-seller Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations last week in its report, including fraudulent transactions and share price manipulation at the Gautam Adani-led group, which has denied the charges.

The market losses of the Adani Group have risen to nearly USD 103 billion (about Rs 8.5 lakh crore).

Thiruvananthapuram: The Congress-led UDF opposition on Wednesday alleged in the Kerala assembly that the ‘incompetence and mismanagement’ of the Left government was the reason for the food poisoning related deaths in the state.

Calling attention to the spate of food poisoning incidents in the state, the opposition claimed that recent events indicate that the LDF government has completely failed to implement the Food Safety Act.

The allegations were refuted by the state government with Health Minister Veena George contending that since the LDF government came to power in 2016, the number of inspections has increased manifold.

She said over 50,000 inspections were carried out last year alone and the state government has now brought in stringent measures, like the ‘Health Card’ for employees of eateries certifying they are healthy and free of contagious diseases.

Health cards would be mandatory from February 16 onwards and besides that, the state government has banned — effective from February 1 — the sale of food items without the “best before label”, she said in the House in response to the issue raised by senior Congress leader and MLA Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan.

Radhakrishnan claimed in the House that the Food Safety and Health departments instead of working in a coordinated manner, are going their separate ways to deal with the issue.

He also claimed that Kerala was number one in the country in food safety during the UDF rule and in 2022 it had slipped to the 6th position.

“There have been a lot of deaths. The mismanagement and incompetence of Food Safety department are the reason for this. Even the public see that.”

The Congress MLA alleged that adulterated dairy products, like milk, and expired or rotten meat were freely entering Kerala from other states, which indicated a lack of checking at the borders.

Moreover, with only three NABL accredited labs in the state, testing of collected samples gets delayed and proper results are not received, leading to the accused persons going scot free.

He further claimed that thousands of cases related to violation of food safety norms were pending in courts and delay in test results due to lack of sufficient labs were also resulting in the accused getting away without any punishment.

George acknowledged the prosecution related concern raised by the senior Congress leader and said that it has been decided to appoint a dedicated law officer in the Food Safety Commissioner’s office to address that issue.

She also said that implementing the Food Safety Act was a priority of the government for which it has recruited more officials, created a Special Task Force and was going to bring in a system for online monitoring of the complaints, action taken, etc.

The minister said that when the next survey is conducted by the Centre, Kerala would surely be at the number one spot in food safety.