Karnataka clears 9 IT projects worth Rs 3097 crore

“Besides attracting investments in three broad sectors and infrastructure, we are aggressively promoting our state as a favourite destination for domestic and global tourists and leisure travellers as we have rich flora and fauna, world famous heritage (Hampi) sites, monuments, scenic beaches, palaces, rock temples, wildlife and our tasty cuisine”, Siddaramaiah added.

The CM then went on to do some self-praise, which is the main objective of the jamboree anyway, when he went on to explain how his government was trying to make the state investor-friendly.

Responding to a demand for allotment of land for a urea factory, made by Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers Ananth Kumar, Mr. Siddaramaiah said 500 acres would be allotted for a urea factory in one of the four districts of Vijayapura, Bagalkot, Dharwad and Raichur in north Karnataka. He said, road projects worth 60 thousand crore rupees will be started in Karnataka before December this year and projects worth another 40 thousand crore will be taken up next year. “We are investing to create more to provide better infrastructure and restore its reputation as a vibrant garden city”, he noted.

Some of the investors during the event raised the issue of traffic problem.

“We are also investing heavily in upgrading infrastructure facilities such as roads, highways, ports, airports, power, and water supply in tier-1 cities and tier-two towns and backward regions across the state for attracting investors with incentives and concessions”, Deshpande said.

Karnataka industries and tourism minister R.V. Deshpande said the state is looking to attract additional investments in areas of aerospace, automotive, pharma, machine tools, textiles, energy, agro food processing apart from its traditional strongholds of IT and BT. But as they say, adversity brings opportunity.

Karnataka is a $120-billion economy. “Karnataka has to grow at least 2-3 per cent ahead of India’s GDP”. “We want Karnataka to be a $700 billion economy by 2035”, he added.

According to the Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking Report 2015, Bengaluru is the only Indian city to be ranked among the 20 startup ecosystems in the world, he proudly bandied.