DEVELOP CITY, get investment

DEVELOP CITY, get investment
CII Meet Looks At State-Industry Partnership For Growth
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: It’s no longer a overgrown town, but a humongous metro, with 198 wards. Integrating it is no mean job and requires the focus to be firmly on infrastructure, and the demand is for massive funds.
Not just to feed a growing city, but also to attract more investments through it across the state. Presently, infrastructure investment is about 4.5% of GSDP, as against a target of 8-9% GSDP.
The required annual investment in the state is Rs 25,000 crore, as against the current annual investment of Rs 11,000 crore.
The state’s ambitious programme to attract a minimum of Rs 50,000 crore investment in its proposed industry corridors, investment prospects and infrastructure projects were discussed at a conference on ‘Opportunities in Industrial Corridor Infrastructure’ here on Friday. It was jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Karnataka, and GoK.
INDUSTRY SHOULD WORK WITH STATE
V Madhu, principal secretary (infrastructure development department), stressed the need for industries to partner proactively with the state government in developing sustainable infrastructure.
“Karnataka’s infrastructure development plan has been developed to support the state’s Vision 2020 document. The department is working on developing feasibility reports for 112 priority projects, of which the data sheets for 35 projects will be made public shortly,’’ he said.
Some of these PPP projects include the High Speed Rail Link and two monorail projects at Bangalore; Devanahalli business park; Devanahalli convention centre; airport projects at Hassan, Bellary, Shimoga and Gulbarga; logistics park; food park; tourism park; industrial infrastructure at Bellary.
The broad areas identified — where PPP would be the model adopted — include logistics architecture in Karnataka; transport hub at Bajpe; mega power projects at Belgaum, Davanagere, Tumkur and Gadag; city gas distribution; railway projects.
POLICIES TO ATTRACT FUNDS
According to V P Baligar, principal secretary (commerce and industries), Karnataka rated high in attracting investments as a state.
New policies have been introduced in infrastructure, industry, tourism, IT & BT sectors for attractive investments. However, land for industries is the main constraint.
To deal with this, the government is now creating a land bank by acquiring 1 lakh acres of land — of these, 40,000 acres are already notified, he said. B Ramaswamy, convener, CII, Karnataka Infrastructure Panel and president — Business Development, Feedback Ventures, mentioned that the Karnataka government’s plan to implement the Suvarna Karnataka Corridor Project would open tremendous investment opportunities across a broad spectrum of sectors, including industrial zones, townships, roads, minor ports/airports; water supply, power generation and distribution, renewable energy, urban and semi-urban social infrastructure; telecom and services sector.
FOR BETTER
FUTURE
Required annual investment in state is Rs 25,000 crore, as against current annual investment of Rs 11,000 crore
State has ambitious programme to attract a minimum of Rs 50,000 crore investment in its proposed industry corridors, investment prospects and infrastructure projects
PPP to be model adopted in logistics architecture in Karnataka, transport hub at Bajpe, mega power projects at Belgaum, Davanagere, Tumkur and Gadag; city gas distribution and railway projects