Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday ordered the identification and cancellation of “ineligible” BPL cards at the panchayat level, with stricter enforcement of the criteria.
Siddaramaiah, who along with Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, reviewed the progress of Karnataka’s five flagship guarantee schemes at CM’s home office ‘Krishna’, focused on plugging “leakages” and removing “ineligible” beneficiaries of the poll guarantees, even as the Congress party is pitching them nationally as a model of welfare governance.
As per the data presented during the meeting, the state has already spent Rs 97,813 crore under the guarantee schemes: Rs 50,005 crore to 1.24 crore women under Gruha Lakshmi (Rs 2,000 monthly financial assistance to woman heads of every BPL household); Rs 18,139 crore to 1.64 crore households under Gruha Jyothi (free power up to 200 units to every household); Rs 623 crore to 2.55 lakh youth under Yuva Nidhi (unemployment benefit up to Rs 3,000 to fresh graduates and diploma holders); Rs 13,903 crore under Shakti (free bus travel for women) for 544 crore passenger rides and Rs 11,821.17 crore for 72.02 crore beneficiaries under Anna Bhagya (10 kilo free rice for each member of BPL households).
Acknowledging the massive scale of benefits, Siddaramaiah also directed the officials to update the list of deceased beneficiaries at the gram panchayat level every month and ensure their names are removed from the rolls and intimated to the banks. He also asked the Panchayats to add or delete names of beneficiaries to keep the rolls clean.
The chief minister also sought to end confusion over whether GST return filers could claim Gruha Lakshmi benefits by instructing the departments to issue clear guidelines.
Amid complaints of diversion or resale of ‘Anna Bhagya’ rice, the meeting resolved to take stringent action against the resale of subsidised rice in the open market. The meeting also discussed the need to provide other food grains in place of rice depending on the regional preferences.
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Siddaramaiah stressed that the guarantee schemes must reach only genuine beneficiaries and should be implemented in a “mission mode” to ensure both scale and integrity.
It may be recalled that the latest Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report tabled in the monsoon session of the Karnataka legislature had flagged issues over the mounting financial stress caused by the five guarantees. It stated that the state government had spent 15 per cent of the Rs 63,000 crore- the total borrowings in 2023-24, on the guarantee schemes.
The CAG also noted that Karnataka’s fiscal deficit increased from Rs 46,623 crore to Rs 65,522 crore and the overall debt rose by Rs 37,000 crore. While the receipts grew by 1.86 per cent, the expenditure had increased by 12.54 per cent due to the guarantee schemes, leading to a revenue deficit of Rs 9,271 crore. There had been a 68 per cent rise in incomplete projects and dip in capital expenditure by Rs 5,229 crore.
Interestingly, when the issue was raised in the Assembly, the Chief Minister defended the guarantee schemes as “development schemes” that had helped boost the per capita income of the State.
“The per capita income has increased from Rs 1.01 lakh in 2018 to Rs 2.04 lakh in 2025 due to the guarantees. Also, the Shakti scheme has led to additional employment of 23 per cent in Bengaluru and 21 per cent in Hubballi-Dharwad for women. In fact, the previous BJP government’s financial indiscipline and reduction in central allocations are the reasons behind the financial stress,” Siddaramaiah had told the House.
The CM had claimed that the previous BJP government had cleared tenders worth Rs 2.7 lakh crore without allocating necessary funds and also floated the CM’s Discretionary Fund worth Rs 1.66 crore without setting aside any fund. And there had been a reduction of Rs 80,000 crore in the Central allocation of the state’s share.
BJP state president B.Y. Vijayendra had mocked the Congress government for diverting Rs 11,896.84 crore allocated for the welfare of Scheduled Castes in the 2025–26 budget to fund the guarantee schemes. “Congress has betrayed Dalits and also undermined social justice,” the BJP leader alleged.
