Loan Waiver Effect? Not a Single Penny for Karnataka Home Dept in Kumaraswamy's Budget

Bengaluru: The maiden budget of the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition on Thursday may have brought cheer for Karnataka’s farmers but has left the home department high and dry.

For the first time in the history of Karnataka, the home ministry, which falls under deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, was not allocated any funds under the Rs 2.13 lakh crore budget announced by chief minister HD Kumaraswamy — the biggest ever budget presented by any CM of Karnataka.

It seems that the chief minister’s pre-poll promise of waiving off farm loans has curtailed the flow of funds to other departments. The government wrote off debt worth Rs 34,000 crore in the budget.

The move is set to impact recruitment in the police force, which is severely under-staffed. The department had plans to fill the over 22,000 vacancies after the allocation of funds but will now have to freeze the process.

Former chief minister Siddaramaiah’s February 2018 budget, which allocated Rs 250 crore for the home department, had outlined various plans for the police force that will also be put on the back burner.

The various projects announced by Siddaramaiah included increasing the strength of women in the police force from 5% to 25%, starting a Police Services Recruitment Board and Nirbhaya Centres in every commissionerate to help distressed women, allocating Rs 50 crore to improve the quality of police training schools, Rs 5 crore to set up cybercrime forensic laboratory, high-speed broadband connections to all police stations, Rs 85 crore to set up a high security prison in Mangaluru and Rs 100 crore for another high security cell in Bengaluru among others. However, the funds for the same have not been released yet.

An IPS officer of the ADGP rank told News18 that it was the first time that the home department was not allocated any funds. “Police department is huge. One needs money to maintain infrastructure and for training, recruitment and modernisation. Policemen need to be well equipped and trained to deal with the threat of cyber crime. I think the government should think about it,” he said.

Another officer said, “Dr G Parameshwara is the head of home department and also the deputy CM of the state. He should have demanded funds for the police. It is not too late, he can still put pressure on the CM.”

News18 tried to get in touch with director general and inspector general of police Neelmani Raju but she was not available for a reaction.