Decongesting Bengaluru, a city hogging headlines for its traffic and bad infrastructure, is another battle the government has picked.
Karnataka will ban social media for children under 16 and the picturesque Mysuru will be developed to decongest Bengaluru, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, whose 2026-27 Budget revealed the state’s deepening financial woes, forcing him to stick to such reformist announcements.
In spite of a widening fiscal deficit, Siddaramaiah has presented an ambitious outlay of Rs 4.48 lakh crore in an attempt to speak to all sections of society.
Given the financial constraints, including an allocation of Rs 51,286 crore for the ‘guarantee’ schemes, Siddaramaiah had to pick his battles. And one of them was to keep children from the ills of social media.
“With the objective of preventing adverse effects of increasing mobile use on children, use of social media will be banned for children under the age of 16,” Siddaramaiah said. The government, however, did not explain how this will be implemented. Regulations will be framed for this, he said.
Decongesting Bengaluru, a city hogging headlines for its traffic and bad infrastructure, is another battle the government has picked.
Easing Bengaluru’s burden will now be upon Mysuru, Siddaramaiah’s native place, which will be developed as the state’s second IT city. Mysuru already has 30,000 employees across 100 IT companies, he said.
In his record 17th Budget, Siddaramaiah has announced programmes for women, farmers, backward classes, SC/STs and minorities, some of them either have a minor allocation or a long-term rollout plan.
Siddaramaiah also made it a point to discuss jobs. “This year, we have initiated the process to fill 56,432 posts,” he said. He even announced a programme of providing loans up to Rs 5 lakh to help unemployed youth start “modern laundries”. Plus, an online employment exchange scheme called ‘Kayaka Bhagya’ will be implemented to provide skill-based jobs to workers in the unorganised sector.
But a bigger battle awaits Siddaramaiah in the next fiscal: meeting revenue targets.
For the fiscal ending 2025-26, Siddaramaiah reduced the budget size to Rs 3.95 lakh crore owing to a revenue shortfall. To achieve an expenditure of Rs 4.48 lakh crore with a saturated tax base seems difficult.
Sample this: Siddaramaiah has fixed an own-tax revenue collection target of Rs 2.20 lakh crore for the upcoming fiscal, a modest rise from the earlier Rs 2.08 lakh crore. Revenue shortfall also meant that capital expenditure fell 7% to Rs 65,982 crore in the current fiscal. For 2026-27, capital expenditure is estimated at Rs 74,682 crore.
The government is expected to rely on borrowings. In 2026-27, Siddaramaiah wants to borrow Rs 1.32 lakh crore. For the fourth year in a row, Siddaramaiah has tabled a revenue-deficit Budget. The deficit for the new fiscal is pegged at Rs 22,957 crore. Fiscal deficit is projected to be Rs 97,449 crore. The state’s total liabilities at the end of 2026-27 could be around Rs 8.24 lakh crore.
Siddaramaiah has argued that he is within fiscal discipline parameters. However, these numbers will make spending difficult unless resources are mobilised.
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Cut-off box – Rs 1.5k cr to curb wildlife conflicts A Rs 1500-cr commitment for a five-year plan to mitigate wildlife conflicts and a promise to fill vacancies in the forest department were highlights of the budget which otherwise glossed over major challenges posed by climate change. Details on Page 9