Hard decision must for hardware park

Hard decision must for hardware park
The Times of India

Bangalore: Even as India’s IT capital is witnessing threats of flight of capital, the ambitious plan for a hardware park to set Bangalore up as a competitor to Singapore is crying for immediate attention.

Aiming to cater to the booming hardware market both in India and abroad, the project was the brainchild of the Krishna government. A hardware task force under the IT minister was set up with members from the industry to push the sector to tackle the projected $150 billion requirement within India itself by 2008.

It took four years of dallying, a change of government, promises by three IT ministers and extended red tape, before the required 1,419 acres of land for the park was frozen in August, 2005, near the under-construction Bangalore international airport at Devanahalli. Six months later, it is the same old story: The project has not progressed an inch.

The knotty process of land acquisition for the park has not begun. “The file was sent to the previous industries minister P G R Sindhia for clearance. But before any further action could take place, the government fell. Now, we are waiting for the new government to find its feet,’’ sources in project nodal agency Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) told The Times of India.

With the IT industry still sceptical about the new government’s promises, officials said action would have to be taken very quickly to convince the hardware sector of commitment to the project. “Freezing the land is just the first step. The industry wants all facilities of a special economic zone in the new hardware park, so that the sector will grow rapidly. For this central clearances have to come through. It depends on the political will of the new government,’’ an official pointed out.

The new government will also have to simultaneously look at the issue of water availability raised by the industries department. Water has to be supplied to the hardware park through long-distance pipes from the BWSSB’s Cauvery IV stage II phase project, as ground water in extremely hard to come by in the Devanahalli region.

The BWSSB is said to have orally agreed to undertake the laying of fresh pipes for the proposed hardware park and supply dedicated water, like what is being done for the international airport. But this has still not come in writing from them.

Land frozen for the park

Bagalur — 363 acres
Huvinayakanahalli — 569.34 acres
Bandikodigehalli — 311.18 acres
Mahadevakodigehalli — 175.03 acres
Total — 1,419.15 acres