Bangalore, Jan 05: Achieving shelter for all by 2005, Rs 170 crore World Bank assisted project to remove regional imbalance, special package for weavers' welfare and establishment of a dedicated road fund formed the highlight of the Karnataka Governor T N Chaturvedi's address to the state legislature session on the opening day today. Chaturvedi in his maiden address after he assumed as governor, promised establishment of a bio-tech park to boost biotechnology sector growth and completion of all on-going major and medium irrigation projects by 2005 end, besides declaring that the congress government headed by Chief Minsiter S M Krishna has provided a corruption and scam free government.
The fiscal reforms initiated by the government in the last four years have yielded a 15 per cent growth on own tax revenues, the revenue expenditure has grown at about 10.7 per cent in this period as against 15.5 per cent in the four years before reforms, he said.
He also said the government proposed to computerise all gram panchayats, devolve 60 per cent of funds to them and extension of the Gram Jyoti scheme to provide round the clock power supply to domestic users to the entire state in a phased manner.
Chaturvedi said the government proposed to pose to a project to ADB seeking financial assistance for the development of 20 towns in north Karnataka and seven new districts.
He outlined a plethora of infrastructure development projects initiated by the government. Bureau Report