In Karnataka, there’s a heated debate between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Minister of State V Somanna about the Jal Jeevan Mission, which aims to provide clean drinking water to every household.
Siddaramaiah accused the Central government of holding back money that Karnataka deserves. He said that the Centre has only given Karnataka about ₹11,760 crore of the ₹26,119 crore they promised, which is only 45% of its commitment. Meanwhile, he pointed out that the Karnataka government has spent ₹20,442 crore, which is 88.3% of what it promised. He declared, “Every rupee released by the Centre has been fully utilized by Karnataka! Yet, the Modi government continues to block funds!”
For the fiscal year 2024-2025, the Centre promised ₹3,804 crore, but only gave ₹570 crore. In contrast, Karnataka managed to spend around ₹4,977 crore from its budget against an allocation of ₹7,652 crore. Siddaramaiah said despite writing many letters, no further money was released. He criticized the Modi government for hurting the Jal Jeevan Mission while people like Somanna spread lies.
Somanna responded with his own set of figures, saying Karnataka is ranked 22nd out of 34 states and union territories involved in the Jal Jeevan Mission. He said the state has only completed 52.16% of its targets for the year and managed to connect only 2,430 homes to water daily, while it should be connecting 9,744. According to him, the central government allocated ₹28,623 crore from 2019-2020 to 2024-2025, but Karnataka has only used ₹11,760 crore of it, which means there’s still ₹16,863 crore left unclaimed.
Somanna criticized Siddaramaiah for his comments, calling them political and unfair. He claimed that the state hasn’t acted quickly enough to get its share of the money and failed to submit important reports on time. He urged the Chief Minister to focus on resolving these issues instead of making things political.
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