Karnataka spends close to Rs 1cr on one Cabinet meet
Karnataka spent Rs 1 crore on the decoration for a cabinet meet.
By TNN |
GULBARGA: Austerity wasn���t quite the political rage a year ago, but even by easier standards this was rather extravagant. On September 26 last year, the state BJP government chose to make a big show of its concern for north Karnataka and decided to hold a cabinet meeting in this city. Guess what they ended up doing? Spend Rs 28 lakh on decoration alone ��� most of it on flowers.
A glimpse of this floral tribute to north Karnataka (rather, to the notables of Yeddyurappa government notables) emerged from an RTI query put by TOI under the Right to Information Act. The decoration expenditure included putting up many buntings and welcome arches for 34 ministers, their secretaries and staff, who had taken the trouble of travelling 623 km from Bangalore.
The total expenditure for this one meeting was a shade lower than Rs 1 crore ��� Rs 92.39 lakh. The meeting was touted as a move to impart confidence to the people of north Karnataka regions, who had felt neglected by previous governments, that this government cared. So, no effort, human and financial, was spared to hold it.
The meeting was for a couple of hours. The city was awash with welcome arches, newly laid out roads and was teeming with people keen to catch a glimpse of the ministers. Decisions taken included carving out Yadgir as a separate district from Gulbarga, declaring November 15 ��� the jayanti of Kanakadasa, noted 16th century poet, philosopher and musician ��� as a government holiday, and sanctioning Rs 4 crore for the B R Ambedkar Chair in Gulbarga University.
In 1997, at the cabinet meeting held in Hubli during J H Patel���s tenure as CM, a committee was constituted to look into the problems of regional imbalance in north Karnataka. But efforts of successive governments have not yielded much result.
To placate the region, a legislature session was held in Belgaum in 2006 followed by another early this year. An assurance to make Belgaum as the second capital of Karnataka was announced in the first session.
Now, the government plans to hold the World Kannada conference in Belgaum in December. Incidentally, another cabinet meeting was held this year in Gulbarga on August 27. Sources say, bills of contractors are yet to be cleared. So getting a fix on the final expenditure figure was not possible.
A glimpse of this floral tribute to north Karnataka (rather, to the notables of Yeddyurappa government notables) emerged from an RTI query put by TOI under the Right to Information Act. The decoration expenditure included putting up many buntings and welcome arches for 34 ministers, their secretaries and staff, who had taken the trouble of travelling 623 km from Bangalore.
The total expenditure for this one meeting was a shade lower than Rs 1 crore ��� Rs 92.39 lakh. The meeting was touted as a move to impart confidence to the people of north Karnataka regions, who had felt neglected by previous governments, that this government cared. So, no effort, human and financial, was spared to hold it.
The meeting was for a couple of hours. The city was awash with welcome arches, newly laid out roads and was teeming with people keen to catch a glimpse of the ministers. Decisions taken included carving out Yadgir as a separate district from Gulbarga, declaring November 15 ��� the jayanti of Kanakadasa, noted 16th century poet, philosopher and musician ��� as a government holiday, and sanctioning Rs 4 crore for the B R Ambedkar Chair in Gulbarga University.
In 1997, at the cabinet meeting held in Hubli during J H Patel���s tenure as CM, a committee was constituted to look into the problems of regional imbalance in north Karnataka. But efforts of successive governments have not yielded much result.
To placate the region, a legislature session was held in Belgaum in 2006 followed by another early this year. An assurance to make Belgaum as the second capital of Karnataka was announced in the first session.
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Now, the government plans to hold the World Kannada conference in Belgaum in December. Incidentally, another cabinet meeting was held this year in Gulbarga on August 27. Sources say, bills of contractors are yet to be cleared. So getting a fix on the final expenditure figure was not possible.
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