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Siddaramaiah holds budget training programme for legislators, blames Centre for revenue deficit
Karnataka projected a Rs 22,000 crore shortfall for the coming fiscal. CM Siddaramaiah asserted that the release of pending central funds would have led to a surplus budget.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah (File photo)
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday drew on his experience as a lecturer to hold a training programme for legislators regarding the state budget—an event boycotted by Opposition MLAs from the BJP and Janata Dal (Secular).
In his address, Siddaramaiah launched his defence against Opposition charges that he was pushing the state into a debt trap. Noting that Karnataka was a revenue-surplus state until 2018, he blamed the revenue-deficit years on central policies that meted out “stepmotherly” treatment to states like Karnataka.
Karnataka had a revenue deficit of Rs 19,000 crore in 2025-26 and a projected deficit of Rs 22,000 crore for the upcoming fiscal year. If the state received the funds it was owed, “we could have presented a (revenue) surplus budget,” Siddaramaiah said. While discontinuing GST compensation in 2022 put a pinch on the state exchequer, the recent GST rationalisation implemented in September 2025 strained it further, he claimed.
Among the dues from the Centre was its share under the Jal Jeevan Mission. Of the Rs 30,888 crore owed to the state, till now, the Centre has paid Rs 11 crore, while the state has even paid the Centre’s share in some cases, Siddaramaiah said. “If those funds were released, our revenue deficit would have been lower,” he added.
The situation was the same for Bengaluru Metro, where the state government bore 88 per cent of the cost, while the Centre contributed the remainder. “But, the perception is that the project is funded by the Centre,” he said.
Siddaramaiah also blamed the gradual decline of the Centre’s share in centrally sponsored schemes as a cause for the revenue deficit in high-growth states like Karnataka.
The Opposition BJP and JD(S) have targeted the Congress administration for increasing borrowings over successive financial years. Noting that Karnataka’s total debt would be Rs 8.24 lakh crore, Siddaramaiah said that the amount would be within the limits prescribed under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, 2003. The Act mandates states to limit their total debt to 25 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product.
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“How much debt has the Centre accrued? While it was Rs 53.11 lakh crore in 2013-14 when Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister, it is 218 lakh crore today. The debt has grown by Rs 165 lakh crore in 11 years,” Siddaramaiah said, adding that this put national debt at 55 per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.
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