Eye to the upcoming general elections, the Congress Government in Karnataka launched the ambitious Anna Bhagya scheme in Bangalore on Wednesday. According to Government sources, the scheme covers one crore BPl families across the State. As per the scheme, each BPl family can get up to 30 kgs of rice per month. This commitment would cost Rs 4,400 crore per annum to the exchequer.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said this project would help the poor come out of hunger and called for Opposition parties to stop politicising this issue. He said, "Forget how much it costs and where the money comes from. The question is how successful the rice scheme has been in erasing the poor man's hunger. This is one of the biggest schemes and brings lots of credit to the Congress in the country but it also brings us punya (blessings)."
According to the Congress, this scheme was introduced to keep the promise made to the people during the recently held elections. Karnataka is planning to buy more than one lakh tonne rice from Chhattisgarh and other sources. Opposition parties are up against the Congress Government for introducing this scheme in anticipation of general elections. Even the corporate sector is skeptical about these populist measures. leader of the Opposition HD Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) expressed doubts about the implementation of the scheme.
He said, "Thousands of the poor are yet to get BPl cards. I am also skeptical about the distribution and preparedness of the Government in implementing this scheme. Still I welcome the scheme which benefits the poor but the Government needs to do homework before announcing such a scheme." Former Infosian and vice-president of Bangalore Political Action Committee (BPAC) Mohandas Pai said, "If the Government does this, it is nothing but looting the public money. Giving rice at Rs 1 per kg to one crore people, neither that much of rice is available nor money." He also suggested to utilise Rs 4,000 crore to impart skill-oriented schemes which would help generate livelihood.