KARNATAKA

:Karnatakagovernment has become the first state to initiate e-Rupi disbursement for scholarships of eligible students. e-Rupi will be used to ensure leak-proof delivery of Education fees by paying digitally to the college/institute. Karnataka government will get e-vouchers delivered to the mobiles of eligible students. The voucher code can be received on feature phones too. The students will be able to redeem the vouchers at the identified colleges/institutes for the purpose of fees payment.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), https://exam.pscnotes.com/state-bank-of-india”>State Bank Of India (SBI), and the state department of e-Governance have partnered to enable and implement e-Rupi.

Karnataka government has onboarded around 176 schemes of 35 departments on the DBT platform.

Cracking the whip on public universities for increasingfeesarbitrarily, the department of higher Education has proposed to bring in a uniform fee structure for courses across varsities and regulate other fees like exam fees and sport fees. An expert committee has been formed to recommend steps in this regard, reportsSruthy Susan Ullas.

The proposal will be applicable to all affiliating and unitary universities that come under the ambit ofKarnataka State UniversitiesAct 2000. There are 25 public universiti-es in the state. The panel will also look at a uniform timeframe for holding exams, evaluation and announcement of results.

Despite a recommendation to the contrary, the has decided to merge all four state-run road transport corporations to plug operational losses and increase efficiency.

KarnatakaState Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) Staff and Workers Federation, for years, has been demanding a merger with Bangalore Metro Transport Corporation (BMTC), North Western Karnataka RTC (NWKRTC) and Kalyana Karnataka RTC (KKRTC).

It was even one of the demands made to the MR Srinivasa Murthy committee which was set up by the government in November 2021 to recommend measures to restructure and revive ailing RTCs. However, the one-man committee reportedly rejected the merger demand.

KSRTC was bifurcated in 1997 into new corporations such as BMTC and NWKRTC. In 2000, one more corporation, KKRTC (formerly NEKRTC), was formed.

TheMumbai-Karnatakaregion will be renamed as ‘Kittur Karnatakaregion’ as there is no point in retaining the old name when border disputes often emerge, chief ministerBasavaraj Bommaisaid.

The CM was apparently referring to the repeated claims made by Maharashtra politicians demanding the merger of Belagavi district and a few border regions of Karnataka with Maharashtra owing to the presence of a substantial Marathi speaking Population.

He argued that the changes in the region should have happened in 1956 when the State Reorganisation Act came into effect.

The CM said the government has given utmost importance to Kannada making the language compulsory in higher Education under the new National Education Policy.

With the Karnataka State Universities (Amendment) Bill-2022 being passed in the legislative assembly on Wednesday, eight new universities will spring up, taking the total number of varsities in the state (including 25 private and 11 deemed-to-be ones) to a staggering 69.

New universities will be established at Bidar, Haveri, Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Hassan, Koppal, and Bagalkot, while the unitary degree college in Mandya will be upgraded into a varsity.

The state will initially spend Rs 14 crore to set these universities and will earmark Rs 2 crore a year for each university later. Narayan insisted that a university in each district is in consonance with the National Educational Policy.

Forest minister Umesh Katti expressed the idea of acquiring Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture land near forest areas, claiming that farmers are unable to cultivate them due to regular raids by wild animals, in the assembly recently. The statement enraged farmers, who demanded that the government take measures to prevent wild animals from straying into farmland, instead of acquiring the land.

The farmers want the forest department to buy their land, and provide compensation, so that they can buy land in other places, he said during the assembly session.
Reacting to the issue, minister Katti said that he will discuss it with the deputy commissioner and forest officials, and take a decision to acquire the land from farmers, which are in the fringes of forests.

TheKarnatakaState Stamps (Amendment) Bill, 2021, is ready and it will be tabled in the legislative assembly and council in the monsoon session thats scheduled to begin on September 13, according to officials in theparliamentary affairs department.

The cabinet cleared the amendment for the stamp duty reduction last month and chief minister Basavaraj Bommai reportedly asked officials to bring the bill to the House on priority.

The Karnataka BJP legislature party on Tuesday evening had elected Basavaraj Bommai as its new leader to succeed outgoing chief ministerB S Yediyurappa.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yediyurappa took to twitter to congratulate the new chief minister.

The swearing in ceremony was attended by the Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Kishan Reddy, appointed as observers by the BJP parliamentary board, outgoing chief minister BS Yediyurappa, all top leaders of the state. Barring senior Congress leader RV Deshpande, opposition leaders remained absent.

CM Siddaramaiah revealed that the size of the budget he will present on July 7 will be about Rs 3. 35 lakh crore.

At the inauguration of a three-day training programme for first-time MLAs organised by legislative assembly speaker UT Khader, Siddaramaiah said the budget size will be at least Rs 25,000 crore more than the previous budget presented by his predecessor Basavaraj Bommai. In February, Bommai presented a budget of Rs 3. 09 lakh crore.

Siddaramaiah said, The size of the budget will be increased to make provision for Congress five poll guarantees.

He said the government needs about Rs 60,000 crore annually for the schemes.

He urged newly elected legislators to read and understand the nitty-gritty of the financial statement and actively participate in the discussion on the budget. You all should learn and understand budgets and , he said.

The first budget after Independence was Rs 21. 3 crore. In the 12th century, Kayakayogi Basavanna spoke about budgets. Kayaka and Dasoha are key factors of a budget.

Kayaka means production, Dasoha means sharing. He explainedthat the value of the budget is understanding where production is and to whom it is distributed in Society.

Both the state and central governments have been aggressively pushing the cause of digital administration, and although the advantages of many such initiatives are evident, the beneficiaries of many such schemes, on the other hand, are complaining of poor implementation on the part of the authorities.

Smartphones were distributed to anganwadi workers with the idea of streamlining the functioning of the Annganwadis including effective implementation of the various welfare schemes including PoshanAbhiyan . Unfortunately for the authorities, with the validity of the prepaid data and voice vouchers that the phones came with expiring, the scheme has now been rendered moot.

Anganwadi workers alleged that, in some taluks inKarnataka, the validity of the vouchers had expired six months ago. Disgruntled staff took exception with the fact teachers continue to be held responsible for the failure of such schemes. Anganwadi workers said that the cost of data vouchers was too prohibitive for them to recharge their phones by spending from their pockets.