Where are these hubs?

WHERE ARE THESE HUBS?
Science City, Hardware Park, Biotech Park and NRI City... All these projects for Bangalore have been announced with much fanfare, but none has really taken off.
The Times of India

SCIENCE CITY
Still looking for land...

The Rs 70-crore Science City project announced for Bangalore in the 2002 budget by the Krishna government has hit a dead-end with no land available for it.

Part of the originally identified 100 acres of land near the Bannerghatta National Park belongs to the Central Reserve Police Force, which is not willing to part with it. Another plot of land belonging to the Karnataka Film Development Corporation near Hesaraghatta was also not available since the Film City project and the Kanteerava Studio are proposed to be located on this 300-acre plot.

This ambitious project is being modelled on the Science City in Kolkata, with provision for science and technology museums and an I-Max theatre among other facilities.

Over the past three years, the state science department has, in its science budget, set aside Rs 50 lakh, Rs 20 lakh and Rs 5 lakh respectively as a provisional amount for this project. Around 26 per cent of the total investment will be provided by the state and Centre, while the remainder will be raised from private parties.

State science and technology department officials stated that the CRPF has asked the government to return its investment on the Bannerghatta property if it was to give up the land. Incidentally, while the CRPF has shown reluctance to part with the land, NGOs have challenged allotment of the land, which is next to the Bannerghatta National Park.

Former science & technology minister Nafees Fazal had last year stated that if the Bannerghatta land is not available, the information and tourism department was willing to allot 100 acres of the 300 acres for the proposed Film City. Sources in the state science & technology department said some doubts have crept in regarding this property too since a proposal has been made to relocate the Kanteerava Film Studio to the Film City as well. This will leave little space for a Science City.

“As of now, the project is not off. It is only a question of the government deciding on the land,’’ said science & technology department officials. So far, Karnataka has been able to only launch a regional science city programme for Dharwad. A society to oversee this Rs 6.5 crore programme has been set up.

HARDWARE PARK
Waiting for the airport?

Three years have passed since the then chief minister S.M. Krishna announced a hardware park project, the state government initiative to foster the hardware industry. At the inaugural of Bangalore IT.Com 2001, Krishna had said the park was expected to come up near the proposed Devanahalli international airport to facilitate export logistics. Is the government waiting for the airport project to get off the ground to take a “hard decision’’ on this project?

That announcement came as a major respite for the hardware sector — which has been suffering from apathy due to heavy taxation — and the software sector — which has been reeling under a severe meltdown. Many local software firms then thought of looking at hardware pastures if the project materialised, hoping to replicate the success of China and Taiwan. They hoped the initiative would help the segment realise its value proposition on par with software.

The chief minister, his ministers in the IT and industry portfolio and the IT secretary repeated the same statement at various occasions. The government even set up an exclusive task force to identify land for this park in four different locations on the city’s outskirts. The task force drew up a detailed blueprint and logistics plan with the help of a Delhi-based market research firm, Feedback Strategic. The three sub-committees formed by the task force looked into policy, marketing and infrastructure issues.

However, except for all the paperwork and bureaucratic deliberations, nothing happened on the ground. The government set January 2004 as the deadline to commence construction work of the 1,000-acre hardware park at an outlay of Rs 750 crore. After this deadline went by and nothing happened, it cited “election pressures’’. In May 2004, the then IT minister D.B. Inamdar said, “The project work will gain speed once the new government is in place.’’

But it hasn’t. The political and corporate landscapes and business dynamics have changed. It’s six months since the new government has taken over. But it is yet to make the hardware park a reality.

NRI CITY
Grand designs

Billed as one of India’s largest foreign direct investment projects, Union minister Jagdish Tytler’s NRI City in Bangalore is to come up near the proposed international airport at Devanahalli at a cost of Rs 13,800 crore.
The promoters are a USbased promoter Collins Benjamin, president and managing director, Royal Garden City Enterprise Private Limited. The project envisages a “smart city’’ which will have residential units and industrial districts.

The application submitted through the single window agency to the Karnataka Udyog Mitra is yet to be cleared.
It will also be Asia’s largest new city development. Work is scheduled to commence in 2005 and expected to be completed in phases by 2015. The project envisages 35,000 residential units, a central business district, industrial district, entertainment district, parks, restaurants, shopping, educational facilities, and civic amenities. About 3-5 lakhs people are expected to reside there.

BIOTECH PARK
Land ready, work yet to start

Though the state government has acquired 75 acres of land near Electronic City for setting up the biotech park, work is yet to commence there, much to the disappointment of the biotech industry.

It was said that once construction started, the park would be ready in 12-14 months. But given the little initiative on starting work on the structures, such deadlines have become meaningless.

Institutions such as the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) and the Centre for Human Genetics are expected to be housed in this park. It is learnt that Wockhardt too is planning to come here.

The biotech park had attracted controversy right from the start. The location proposed initially — University of Agricultural Sciences near Hebbal — met with resistance from students and some others. This resulted in the government leaving the campus alone.

Much later, the government identified Electronic City as the site for the park. Nothing much has moved since then.