Karnataka will spend ₹14 crore on an eight-month impact assessment of its five flagship guarantee schemes and other social-security programmes, while also approving two Bengaluru water reservoirs worth ₹61.5 crore. The decisions were taken at the state cabinet meeting and announced by parliamentary affairs minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Thursday.
The assessment, named Project K-Monitor, will be led by the Karnataka Monitoring and Evaluation Authority (KMEA), which may appoint third-party survey agencies. The exercise will be conducted in two phases, with 1 lakh respondents in the first phase and 60,000 in the second, according to Byre Gowda.
The surveys are intended to measure citizens’ experience with the schemes, service quality, inclusion and exclusion, complaints and other administrative outcomes. Byre Gowda said the relevant Prajaseva department would conduct the surveys and submit a report to the state government. The government has described the exercise as an effort to understand how the schemes have affected people’s lives and where delivery needs to improve.
The timing of the exercise was questioned because it comes less than two years before the next Karnataka assembly elections. Byre Gowda rejected suggestions that the surveys were designed to attract beneficiaries electorally, saying the government already had access to the datasets generated by each scheme. He said the purpose was to independently assess the schemes’ impact rather than rely only on administrative records.
The cabinet also approved detailed project reports for two Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board reservoirs. A 50-million-litre reinforced cement concrete reservoir will be built at Kavalbairasandra in Pulakeshinagar at a cost of ₹22.5 crore. It is expected to serve about 72,000 residents. A second 22-million-litre reservoir will be built at the Banashankari service station for ₹39 crore, replacing an existing reservoir that will be demolished.
The reservoir approvals address the operational side of urban water supply: storage capacity, replacement of ageing assets and the ability to serve growing neighbourhood demand. The cabinet announcement did not specify construction commencement dates or completion timelines for either project.
A proposed bus fare increase was deferred for detailed deliberation as concerns continued over the financial sustainability of Karnataka’s road transport corporations. No revised fare decision was announced at the meeting.
The cabinet also approved the creation of the Karnataka Tribal Development Corporation with a ₹33 crore grant. The corporation will cover 33 Scheduled Tribe communities and is intended to support entrepreneurship, skills, market access and livelihoods, including for particularly vulnerable tribal groups such as Irulas, Soligas, Jenukurubas, Kadukurubas, Kudiyas and Siddis. The move follows an announcement in the state’s 2026-27 budget.
