Just after his grand swearing-in ceremony, Siddaramaiah swung into assertive mood and announced many populist programmes for the poor as per the promise made in the election manifesto by his party. Siddaramaiah, who was sworn in as Chief Minister of Karnataka in the morning on Monday in a ceremony, asserted himself and announced 30 kgs of rice at Rs 1 per BPl family per month.
After the customary Cabinet meeting with the Chief Secretary and officials after his swearing in, Siddaramaiah also announced Rs 4 per litre subsidy to milk producers. Addressing his first Press conference as Chief Minister at Vidhana Soudha, Siddaramaiah promised to work for the overall development of the State.
He said, “Keeping in mind the State finances we had promised various schemes in our pre-poll manifesto. I have taken a few decisions today for some of them and we will implement all our pre-poll assurances over a period of next four years in phases. All the measures announced today will result into an additional financial burden of Rs 4,409 crore and benefit 13.8 million persons in the State.”
The new Government has also decided to increase the housing subsidy to Rs 1.20 lakh per unit from the earlier Rs 75,000 for construction of houses under different Government schemes including Indira Awas Yojana, Ashraya among others. This would cause an additional burden of Rs 1,960 crore per annum.
Siddaramaiah said, “There is a need to build 1.2 million houses in Karnataka for the poor. We will provide financial assistance to build 300,000 houses this year and the remaining over a period of five years as promised in our manifesto.”
The Congress returned to power in Karnataka on its own after nine years with Siddaramaiah taking oath on Monday as the 22nd Chief Minister of the State in a grand but brief ceremony attended by tens of thousands of people at Kanteerava Stadium in the heart of the city.
As Governor HR Bhardwaj administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 64-year-old Siddaramaiah under a cloudy sky, the crowds cheered wildly while Siddaramaiah fans from his Assembly constituency Varuna staged folk dances to the beat of music, including drums. Siddaramaiah took oath in the name of truth and the Constitution after Bhardwaj prompted him in Kannada.
Siddaramaiah is expected to constitute the full-fledged Ministry after consultations with the Central leadership sometime this week, a difficult task on hand considering the number of ministerial aspirants.
Amongst the leaders present on the occasion were Central Ministers from the State Mallikarjun Kharge, M Veerappa Moily, KH Muniyappa and K Rahman Khan and Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. Congress general secretary and in-charge of party’s affairs in the State Madhusudhan Mistry and former External Affairs Minister and ex-State Chief Minister SM Krishna were among the other prominent leaders on the dais.