Karnataka's Misplaced grants for religious bodies (Deccan Herald)

Deccan Herald
2 March 2009

Editorial

Misplaced priorities
Grants for religious bodies is political appeasement.


Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, who has had an opportunity to present two budgets in a span of nine months, may not have a formal economics background, but so was the case with many of his predecessors. M Y Ghorpade was perhaps the last finance minister that Karnataka has seen with an academic background of economics and finance. But, Siddaramaiah and S M Krishna who preceded Yeddyurappa in the finance department, carried enough political acumen to depend on sound economic advice before presenting their budgets and put the state on a sound economic footing. The two budgets that Yeddyurappa has presented — last June soon after the elections and now — betray a lack of vision and roadmap to consolidate the state economy in an acutely adverse circumstance.

Global meltdown has begun to hit the country badly. But Karnataka, especially Bangalore, could be worst hit in the coming fiscal year as it has rode high on the information technology sector boom for last one decade. Economic activity is already witnessing severe downturn in IT and textiles, the two major sectors in the state. The fears of large-scale job losses are real in the two sectors. The state government should have geared up to meet this challenge. The resource mobilisation and consequently the budgetary allocation in the last fiscal fell short by over Rs 4,500 crore and the downward fiscal spiral is expected to continue. And yet, Yeddyurappa’s latest budget has not been able to relate itself to this challenge. On the contrary, scarce resources have been proposed to be deployed to dole out to religious institutions. Over and above the Rs 130 crore he handed out while presenting the budget on Feb 20, Yeddyurappa has announced a further Rs 22.70 crore ‘grant’ to religious bodies across the state.

The point is that apparently there were no specific requests or justifiable reasons for such state support. It is as if the chief minister has used the budgetary instrument to openly appease different communities ahead of the general elections. The allocations prompted one Opposition MLA to make a sarcastic remark that Yeddyurappa would have even made allocation for BJP’s ‘operation lotus’ as well, if the Constitution so permitted. These allocations are eminently avoidable. In these times of economic distress, it is still not late for the government to review its budgetary course. It would be prudent and highly desirable that the government allocates its limited finances for public investment so as to induce economic recovery.