Siddaramaiah okays investment proposals worth Rs 44,000 crore

Bangalore: By approving investment proposals worth Rs 44,000 crores through the state high-level clearance committee, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has countered criticism that he is op­­posed to industrial de­ve­lopment.

In­terestingly, a majority of the proposals are from non-IT sectors with many co­mpanies venturing to set up plants in Mysore, Kolar and Tumkur, not Bangalore.

Asian Paints plans to e­stablish its biggest plant in Mysore, the home distr­ict of Siddaramaiah, wi­th the high-level comm­ittee approving 125 acres for the project, according to additional chief secretary, M.N. Vid­yashankar.

Another big-ticket company—Toshiba Electric—pl­ans to set up shop near Tu­mkur with an investment of Rs 290 crore for pr­­oduction of compone­nts of transformers and ge­nerators.

Another Ja­panese firm, NPR, intends to establish an auto-co­mpo­nent producing plant at Narasapur near Kolar at a cost of Rs 170 crore. Hero Group, the two-wheeler major would construct a manufacturing un­it along with 40 vendors at Dharwad with an in­vestment of Rs 1700 crore, Vidyashankar added.

Meanwhile, Chief Mi­nister Siddaramaiah told media persons that the pa­rtnership summit, scheduled to be held in Bangalore between January 27 and 29, would be the precursor for Global In­vestors Meet (GIM) schedu­led later this year.

“Re­presentatives fr­om ov­er 40 countries are coming to the city. We would like to showcase Karnataka. Our main aim is to attract in­vestments for tier-II and tier-III cities,” he said ad­ding that the government would provide adequate power and water to new industries.