Ban on arrack, farmloan waiver are some key points of Kar Budget

Bangalore, Mar 16 (UNI) Presenting a Rs.23.06 crore deficit budget in the Karnataka Assembly Deputy Chief Minsiter B S Yediyurappa today announced Waiver of short term crop loans upto a limit of Rs 25,000, ban on sale of arrack and abolition of lotteries.

Mr Yediyurappa who also holds the finance Portfolio, said the short term loans availed from April 1, 2006 and outstanding as on December 31, 2006 would be waived. For those who had availed short term, medium term and long term loans of more than Rs 25,000 from April 1, 2006, the benefit of complete interest waiver would be given if they paid all principle outstanding within March 31,2007.

The total burden of extending the facilitity to the farming community would be around Rs 1,505 crore and a part of this burden would be met during the financial year 2006-07 itself. In 2007-08 the allocation for the purpose was around Rs 500 crore, he said adding that weavers and fishermen who had availed loans from cooperative sector with the same limit were also included.

Declaring that the state would be a ''Lottery Free Zone'' from April One, he announced the ban of all lotteries in the state, resulting in a loss of Rs 250 crore to the exchequer.

He said the sale of arrack would come to a halt from July one leading to a loss of Rs 1,905 crore. At present arrack was being sold through 15,248 shops throughout the state.

However, he planned to make good the loss by improving tax collection and also enhancing licence fees on various classes of liquor vendors.

While providing relief in sales tax to some commodities, the Finance Minister added a few goods into the tax net and exempted purchase of land by developers for special economic zones and units located in them. He brought into professional tax ambit race horse owners, jockeys and bookies, massage parlours and income tax assesses not specified in professional tax schedule.

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