Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy presented his maiden and Congress-JDS coalition government's budget at 11.30am on Thursday. 

Worth mention here the date and time to present the budget was decided by his brother HD Revanna, who is a firm believer in astrology.

Amid high expectations of farm loan waiver, Karnataka CM decided to waive all defaulted crop loans of farmers up to 31 Dec 2017 in the first stage. Farmers who repaid the loan within time,as an encouragement to the non defaulting farmers. He decided to credit the repaid loan amount or Rs 25000 whichever is less, to limit the loan amount to Rs 2 lakhs.

HD Kumaraswamy while presenting the budget in Vidhana Soudha, asserted this crop loan wiaver scheme for farmers will get the benefit of Rs 34,000 crore.

To facilitate the farmers to avail new loans action will be taken by the govt to issue clearance certificate by waiving the arrears form the defaulting account. For this purpose, Rs 6500 crore is earmarked in 2018-19 budget: Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy announced while presenting the budget.

Here are key points -

50% hike proposed for private service vehicles

Additional excise duty in IMFL by 4%

Increase in petrol prices by Rs 1.14 and Rs 1.12 in diesel proposed

42 continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations to come up with Rs 96 crore investment under district mineral fund.

Chemical effluent treatment plant to come up in Peenya industrial area. Rs 10 crore allocated in budget

A special package of Rs 150 crore has been provided for repairs of government primary, high school and pu colleges buildings

35 electrical sub centres will be set up  through Karnataka transmission corporation to develop transmission system. 75 sub centres will be promoted.

Loan waiver will be pertinent only for those farmers whose borrowings are less than Rs 2 lakh