Bengaluru: Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal, on Monday accused the Siddaramaiah government of failing to implement Central schemes in Karnataka.
Speaking to reporters here, he said the state government's performance in implementing the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and power projects was not satisfactory and it had failed to take Central support in the power sector.
"Two years ago when Karnataka was facing an acute shortage of power. the Centre gave it permission to buy power at the lowest price, but it did not make use of this. Also, while the Centre gave it permission to buy 23 crore LED bulbs , it bought only 1.58 crore. The Centre is ready to approve new power plants for Karnataka even now, but the state government is not ready to set them up," he claimed.
As for the ongoing IT raids across the country, Mr. Goyal said the Centre had no role to play in them. "This is a purely financial matter between the firms, individuals and the IT department," he added.
The minister maintained that implementation of GST would help the public at large and people would benefit in many sectors through lesser taxes as many indirect taxes would disappear.
Claiming that the Centre had achieved a great deal in several areas, he said after the opening of the Paradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana account, nearly two lakh crore in subsidy had been directly remitted to beneficiaries.
