Peeved CM writes to PM, FM

Bengaluru:  Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has strongly criticised the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central Government for slashing the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) loan to Karnataka by 58%, thus cheating the people of the State.

The Chief Minister was speaking to media persons after paying floral tributes to the portrait of Saint Kanakadasa at a function organised to celebrate Kanaka Jayanti, recently.

“Previous year, a NABARD loan of Rs. 5,600 crore was advanced to the State, which has been slashed to a mere Rs. 2,340 crore. This is a great injustice done to the people of Karnataka and more particularly to the farmers of the State. I have written letters to PM Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, not to deprive the farmers of the State, their share of loan amount. NABARD comes directly under FM Nirmala Sitharaman who is elected from Karnataka as a Rajya Sabha MP. What is she doing? There are two Cabinet Ministers in Modi cabinet from the State Pralhad Joshi and H.D. Kumaraswamy. Why are they silent? A staggering Rs. 4.50 lakh crore is being collected as tax from Karnataka and the Central Government allocates a mere Rs. 59,000 crore to the State. Let the NDA MPs and Ministers exert pressure on Modi and release funds to the State. Neither H.D. Deve Gowda nor H.D. Kumaraswamy, have raised their voice when injustice is meted out to the State,” said CM Siddaramaiah.

The core function of NABARD is to implement various farm sector initiatives aimed at conservation and management of natural resources and creation of credit absorption capacity of farmers, to accelerate ground level credit flow through rural financial institutions to enhance agriculture production and productivity.

CM Siddaramaiah assured that, only those BPL cards which fail to meet the requisite criteria will be cancelled and the genuine card holders will continue to get all the benefits.