CM Siddaramaiah presents Annual Budget for 2026-27 before Legislature
Bengaluru: The Budget Session of the Legislature began on Friday, March 6, with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is also Finance Minister of Karnataka, presenting the Annual Budget for the year 2026-27 before the Legislature.
This is the record 17th Budget being presented by Siddaramaiah as Finance Minister.
Siddaramaiah has said that the budget size for the year is Rs 4.48 lakh crore, adding that the GST collected by Karnataka is the second highest in the country.
The CM added that, in spite of the Central government depriving Karnataka of its fair share of financial support, the state was developing fast. There was a rapid growth in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Beyond Bengaluru campaign was supporting investment in other parts of the state.
Here are the live updates:
► A folklore convention, ‘Janapada Sangama’ to be organized at an expenditure of Rs 2 crore
► A memorial to be built honouring Salumarada Thimmakka
► State-of-the-art AI laboratories to be provided to 50 government colleges at a cost of Rs 10 crore
► Women to be given training in modern agricultural skill development
► Up to 3.08 lakh eligible beneficiaries under Yuvanidhi Yojana to get Rs 913 crore as unemployment allowance in three years
► Government to undertake direct recruitment to fill 8,000 vacant posts in Home Department
► Efforts to be made to complete construction of 4.9 lakh houses
► Funds of Rs 1 crore to be allocated for publication of Dalit literature
► Twelve new police stations to be opened in state
► CM aims for Rs 45,000 crore State Excise Revenue in financial year 2026-27
► Government to reserve Rs 30,000 crore to provide agriculture loans with zero rate of interest to 38 lakh farmers
► Yadgir, Karwar to get super-specialty hospitals
► Rs 10 crore for strengthening the Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) unit
► Rs 5 crore allocated for education of children of former Devadasis
► Sales tax on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to be reduced from 14.34% to 5%
► Approval of Jal Jeevan Mission work to be allocated Rs. 69,488 crore
► Grant of Rs 400 crore allocated to Ayushman scheme
► Hubballi-Dharwad city to be provided skill training academy at an estimated expenditure of Rs 200 crore
► Minority welfare Initiatives: 25 new post-matric hostels and 10 CBSE residential schools
► Modernising and enhancing policing in the State
► Rs 10 crore allocated for the first phase of the State’s Quantum Road Map implementation
► Havyaka Bhasha Academy to be launched.
► An AI-based facial recognition attendance system will be implemented in all Anganwadis, schools, colleges, and hostels
► Mysuru to be developed as second IT city: CM.
► U.R. Ananthamurthy Study Centre to be set up in Shivamogga. Na. D’Souza’s play ‘Kolaga’, based on peasant movement in district, to be staged across state.
► Haj Bhavans to be built in Hubballi and Kalaburagi.
► Government to set up Buddhism Development Board; to allocate Rs 50 crore for the development of Christian schools.
► Up to 4,000 electric buses to be purchased
► The dilapidated gates of the Tungabhadra dam to be replaced with 33 new gates before onset of monsoon.
► Government to implement strategic plan to eliminate man-animal conflict with an outlay of Rs 1500 crore in next five years.
► Government to work on development of tourism in coastal districts; ropeway to be installed from Mullaiyanagiri to Sithalayyanagiri in Kaimara.
► Mangaluru fisheries college to receive a centre of excellence
► Buddhist monks to get monthly salary of Rs 6,000
► Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru to be renamed as 'Shantaveri Gopalagowda Hospital'
► Basavanna Biological Park to be built on 153 acres of land at Madappanahalli in Bengaluru
► Flight training school to be started at Vijayapura and Shivamogga airports
► Vacancy of 2,000 posts in the Forest Department to be filled.
► A leopard relocation center to be set up in Bannerghatta at a cost of Rs 5 crore to rehabilitate leopards captured in residential areas on Bengaluru outskirts
► Government to implement strategic plan to eliminate man-animal conflict with an outlay of Rs 1500 crore in next five years
► AI-based education facility to be provided from Class 1 to 12.
► Proposal to be sent to Reserve Bank for opening of DCC banks in all districts with support of NABARD.
► ORRCA to sponsor 9-km pedestrian walkway along ORR metro.
► Stadium with seating capacity of 8,000 to host international sport events to be constructed in Anekal taluk.
► RMP 2041 for Bengaluru to be rolled out by end of 2027.
► Mathru Poorna - ‘hot cooked meals’ for mothers - to make a comeback.
► Rs 44,632 crore allocated for Karnataka’s Scheduled Castes and Tribal Sub-Plans
► Udupi, Shivamogga and Dakshina Kannada districts to get special task forces to prevent communal riots.
► Work on 18.73 km canal under Yettinahole Phase 2 project to be completed soon.
► New welfare schemes for minority communities announced.
► 1,668 Anganwadi buildings to be constructed across all districts of Kalyana Karnataka region.
► Funds of Rs 28,608 crore to be allocated for Gruha Lakshmi scheme; Rs 5,300 crore for Shakti scheme.
► Drip irrigation facility to be provided to 2 lakh farmers; agricultural machinery to be given to 3 lakh farmers.
► 11.7 lakh children diagnosed with anaemia to receive free treatment
► Government to Fully Digitalise APMC Operations Soon: CM
► The Mukhyamantri Krishi Vistara Yojane will be launched for benefit of farmers at a cost of Rs 100 crore in the next three years.
► Millet hubs will be opened to promote cultivation of millets.
► State will open AI-supported call centres to provide agriculture-related information
► Sixty-two (62) ‘Shramika Vasathi’ schools will be opened for the benefit of children of manual workers. Also, government will implement ‘Kayaka Bhagya Yojane’ for unorganized workers.
► State will provide subsidy of Rs 10 lakh at 4 per cent interest rate to members of Savitha Samaja to open saloons.
► Panels will be formed for the development of Kollur Mookambika and Kukke Subrahmanya temples in coastal Karnataka.
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Oath-taking ceremony of first BJP govt in Bengal on May 9; Modi, Shah likely to attend
Kolkata (PTI): The oath-taking ceremony of the first BJP government in West Bengal will be held at Brigade Parade Ground here on May 9, marking the saffron camp’s arrival in power in a state after decades on the political fringes.
The ceremony, scheduled to begin at 10 am, is expected to witness the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president Nitin Nabin, several Union ministers and chief ministers of BJP- and NDA-ruled states, party sources said.
“The new BJP government will take oath on May 9 at 10 am at Brigade Parade Ground,” state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya announced on Wednesday.
Even as the BJP leadership kept its cards close to the chest on the chief ministerial face, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari has emerged as a frontrunner in internal discussions after cementing his position as the party’s principal mass leader in Bengal politics.
Adhikari, once among Mamata Banerjee’s closest lieutenants and a key architect of the TMC’s rural expansion in districts such as Purba Medinipur, crossed over to the BJP ahead of the 2021 assembly elections and went on to defeat Banerjee in Nandigram in one of Bengal’s fiercest political battles.
Five years later, he again found himself at the centre of Bengal’s political churn by beating Banerjee in her own turf at Bhabanipur by over 15,000 votes.
Other names for the CM post doing the rounds include Bhattacharya, Union minister Sukanta Majumdar and former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, though party insiders indicated that the leadership was inclined towards projecting a “bhumiputra” face rooted in Bengal’s linguistic and cultural ethos.
During the campaign, Shah repeatedly asserted that the BJP’s chief minister in Bengal would be a “son of the soil”, born and educated in the state, in an attempt to blunt the TMC’s sustained attack that the BJP represented an “outsider” political culture alien to Bengal’s social and intellectual traditions.
The BJP bagged 207 of the 294 assembly seats in the recently concluded elections, ending the Trinamool Congress’s uninterrupted 15-year rule and scripting the saffron party’s biggest breakthrough in a state where it once struggled to open its electoral account.
Significantly, the swearing-in ceremony will be held on the 25th day of Baisakh in the Bengali calendar — observed across the state as Rabindra Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore — lending the event a deeper cultural symbolism.
According to BJP leaders, the choice of the date is aimed at embedding the party’s historic rise within Bengal’s cultural imagination and countering the long-standing perception battle over identity and belonging.
Over the last decade, the BJP has steadily attempted to appropriate and reinterpret icons of Bengal’s cultural nationalism — from Tagore and Swami Vivekananda to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Syama Prasad Mookerjee — as part of a broader ideological effort to expand its emotional and political footprint in the state.
Party insiders said the leadership was also conscious of the need to balance Bengal’s competing regional aspirations while choosing the chief ministerial face, with discussions also taking place around whether greater representation should be accorded to north Bengal, a region where the BJP has made substantial electoral gains over successive elections.
A meeting of the newly elected BJP MLAs has been convened on May 8 evening, party sources said, though the leadership remained tight-lipped over the final choice.
The Brigade Parade Ground ceremony is expected to mark not merely a transfer of power, but a defining moment in Bengal’s political history, the culmination of the BJP’s long ideological and organisational march from the margins to the centre of power in a state that had for decades resisted the saffron surge seen elsewhere in India.
