Bengaluru: Terming the Union Budget as ‘very average’ and ‘disappointing’, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that the concern and interest shown by PM Modi to farmers was not reflected in the budget.

Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently spoken about doubling the income of farmers by 2022, but no measure to make it a reality was reflected in the budget.”

“The allocation for rural development, agriculture and irrigation, which could have provided thrust to the farm sector, is average. The concern and interest shown by Modi to farmers is not reflected in the budget,” the chief minister said.

Siddaramaiah pointed out that the Centre had saved Rs 1.5 lakh crore this fiscal as the prices of crude oil had come down and the same could have been channelised to the agriculture sector.

He said the State would continue to utilise its own resources to maintain Centrally- sponsored schemes as the Centre’s shares for these programmes continue to be cut.

Siddaramaiah said he had written to the Centre to allocate at least Rs 20,000 crore for accelerated irrigation programmes but only Rs 1,375 crore had been allocated in the budget.

He said the Centre had levied the Krishi Kalyan cess at 0.5 per cent on all taxable services. However, the state governments will not get a share of this cess as it did not come under the divisible polls of taxes.

The proceeds of the cess will be exclusively used for financing initiatives for improvement in agriculture and uplift of farmers.

Congress State president G Parameshwara said that the budget is very disappointing to the distressed farming community. They were hoping that the government would announce a loan waiver in the budget. The previous UPA government had waived farm loans to the tune of Rs 72,000 crore.