The Hindu : `Union budget has let down coffee growers'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 08, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Madikeri

`Union budget has let down coffee growers'

By Our Staff Correspondent

MADIKERI, FEB. 7. The former Chief Minister, M. Veerappa Moily, on Saturday said the Centre's interim budget had nothing to address the crisis faced by coffee growers in the country. He told presspersons here that the Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, and the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, had assured coffee growers of sops to tide over the crisis. But the budget did not reflect their concern. "How could the Centre ignore coffee when it doled out special packages to tea growers?" Mr. Moily said that on the other hand, the State Government had exempted coffee growers from agricultural income tax for the past three years. Besides, it had provided interest relief to small and marginal farmers.

He said the Government had incurred an enormous expenditure on developing roads, bridges, and infrastructure in the Kodagu-Mangalore Lok Sabha constituency since the Congress assumed power in the State. The Madikeri Town Municipal Council had been upgraded into a city municipal council to aid the development of the city. Madikeri had been included in the World Bank-assisted Karnataka Municipal Reforms Project (KMRP), under which many works had been taken up. Besides, the Karnataka Infrastructure Development Corporation was planning to take up several development works in Kodagu.

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