CM announces 198 ‘Namma Canteen’ in state, ‘Motte Bhagya’ for Children – Ivan D’Souza

CM announces 198 ‘Namma Canteen’ in state, ‘Motte Bhagya’ for Children – Ivan D’Souza

Mangaluru: “The current budget for the year 2017-18, which was presented by the chief minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah has done justice with the common people and it is a “People-friendly’ budget. I have visited Tamil Nadu to study about “Amma Canteen”, and submitted a report to the CM. In the budget, the CM has announced 198 “Namma canteen” and earmarked Rs 100 crore for it. Our intention is to start “Namma Canteen”, in all the 60 wards. “Namma Canteen”, will surely help the general public to have their breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a reasonable price”, said the Chief Whip Ivan D’Souza in a press meet held at his chamber here on March 18.

Addressing the mediapersons Ivan said, “To provide nutritious food for children who are going to school, I had urged the Chief Minister to announce “Motte Bhagya” and in this budget, the CM has announced the Motte Bhagya and earmarked Rs 47 crore for the scheme. When the BJP was in power they introduced “Bhagyajyothi” scheme to provide electricity to the economically and socially backward families in the village panchayat areas. Under this scheme, a single bulb connection was provided to the beneficiaries, but since the government did not pay the bills, the meters were removed and power supply was disconnected. When the Congress came to power, the Congress government waived the electricity charges and provided power supply to those homes. Now under the “Bhagyajyothi” scheme, the power units which were limited to 18 have been increased to 40 units”.

Ivan also stressed and said, “There are allegations that the state budget has failed to meet the expectations of the farmers which is not true. According to the survey, only 20% of the farmers have taken the loan from the co-operative banks and rest of the 80% farmers have taken the loan from Nationalised banks. If the Union government will waive 50% of the loan, the state government will surely waive the remaining 50%. The state government cannot do injustice with 80% of the farmers who have taken the loan from Nationalized banks by waiving the loan of 20% of the farmers. Let the MPs go to Delhi to convince the prime minister to waive the 50% loan taken by the farmers.”

Ivan further said, “BJP leaders are busy in discussing the diary, they did not want the budget session to go on smoothly. If any of the ministers are involved in corruption let them file the case and the Law will take its own course, why is the BJP blaming the Congress ministers in the diary issue. The Supreme court has also said that the entries in a diary cannot be served as evidence. Why is the BJP is not thinking about the farmers, there is severe drought and the farmers are facing severe problems. Instead of addressing their problems the BJP leaders are talking only about the diary without any concern for the farmers.”

Kodijal Ibrahim and others were also present.