Don’t overexploit Karnataka, Minister tells Centre

Describing Karnataka as a goose that lays the golden eggs, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Thursday asked the Centre not to kill it by overexploiting it.

He made the remark in the Legislative Assembly when Leader of the Opposition R. Ashok expressed concern that the State was on the borderline of breaching the norms prescribing that revenue deficit should be below 3%, as presently the State’s revenue deficit stood around 2.95%.

Mr. Byre Gowda who piloted the Karnataka Appropriation (No. 3) Bill 2025, said the State’s stand was to ensure that its loans and revenue deficits were below 3% as prescribed by the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.

Launching a counter-attack on the BJP, the Minister said, “Around 20 States have never followed the FRBM Management Act as they have indulged in indiscriminate borrowings unlike Karnataka. But it’s ironical that Karnataka is being punished for its financial discipline and those States that did not stick to FRBM Act are being incentivsed by the Finance Commissions that has given more funds to them.”

He told the Centre that it could get more funds in terms of taxes only if the golden goose was not overexploited.

The quantum of supplementary estimates of the State amounted to just 1.45% of the total budget size, he explained.

The Supplementary Estimates (Second Instalment) for 2025-26, aggregating to ₹ 6,279.87 crore, got the clearance from the House.

Mr. Byre Gowda said a sizeable part of this money would go to farmers. The need for seeking ₹ 1,015 crore had arisen due to the decision taken to provide an additional ₹8,500 per hectare as compensation towards crop losses in the kharif season, above that prescribed by SDRF, he said.

Similarly, ₹300 crore was needed to pay an incentive of ₹50 per tonne for sugarcane farmers as they demanded an increase in FRP, he added.