Bengaluru: Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa will present his 7th budget today. He will start his budget speech at 11 am.

Prior to presenting his budget, he will visit palace grounds of the city where he will attend the marriage of health minister B Sreeramulu’s daughter Rakshitha.

The budget volume is likely to cross Rs.2.5 lakh crores.

BSY presented his first budget as a finance minister when he was the Deputy Chief Minister in JDS-BJP coalition government in 2007.

The highlight of this year’s budget shall be dedicated farmer’s and children’s budget and special emphasis for the irrigation projects. 

Though Yediyurappa assumed office again on July 26, 2019, he was compelled to re-present the budget for fiscal 2019-20 after JD-S-Congress coalition government collapsed on July 23 as its Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy lost the trust vote in the Assembly.

“As the assembly had to pass the budget by July 30, with Kumaraswamy presenting a vote-on-account in February 2019, Yediyurappa did not have time to make major changes in the budgetary proposals for this fiscal,” the Finance Department official said.

The budget could have some of the promises the ruling party made in its manifesto ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections.

With the Central government notifying the Mahadayi inter-state water tribunal award on February 27 following the Supreme Court’s directive on February 20, Yediyurappa will allot funds to resume the Kalasa-Banduri project to supply drinking water to the four-drought prone districts in the state’s north-west region.

“As revenue collection is expected to fall short of the budget estimates for this fiscal (2019-20) due to economic slowdown and reduction in transfer of central funds to the state as part of its share from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, Yediyurappa faces a daunting task in mobilising resources to fund his government’s ambitious projects and schemes,” a political analyst told IANS here.