Bengaluru: Admitting that the pollution level in Bengaluru is growing, Chief Minister Mr Siddaramaiah said that he would soon convene a meeting to discuss all problems pertaining to Bengaluru city.
“Pollution is not restricted to Bengaluru alone. All cities have pollution, so Bengaluru too has it. There are issues pertaining to pollution, garbage and traffic. We have a new minister for Bengaluru city, who is working on the issues. Soon, I will convene a meeting to take stock of the situation,'' he said.
When asked about his government planning to open new wine shops, Mr Siddaramaiah said the number of people drinking liquor had gone up. “We are not forcing people to drink, nor are we forcing wine shops to sell liquor. We would have given a target to the department on revenue generation,'' he said.
Denying the suggestion that the state government was inching towards a debt trap, Mr Siddaramaiah said that the debt was well within the parameters prescribed in fiscal discipline. “The loans should be within 25% of the GSDP, the state’s loans are 24.54 per cent now. It always hovered around 24% and now, it has gone up by 0.54%. We will try to trim it down in the next budget.''
Stating that the government had not received any funds from the Centre for drought relief, Mr Siddaramaiah said there was no truth in the statement made by Union Law Minister Mr D.V. Sadananda Gowda that the State had not made any requisition to the Centre.
We gave India Mobile-One service: CM
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said Karnataka is the pioneer in the country in introducing mobile-One services for citizens. Inaugurating a two-day regional conference on Minimum Government and Maximum Governance, Mr Siddaramaiah said several states and the Centre had reached out to Karnataka to replicate this model across the country. Mobile-One is getting one lakh hits or downloads every day and the number of transactions is also picking up, he said.
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