Tumkur set to wake up to industrial future
When Tumkur becomes a ‘Smart City’, expect it to have ‘intelligent’ infrastructure
By : r. jayaprakash
Update: 2014-09-23 02:32 GMT
Tumkur: With just a day to go before Prime Minister Narendra Modi declares open Karnataka's first integrated food park, a Rs.1,000-crore, 110-acre hub being put up by the Future Group, the KIADB’s Vasanthnarasapura industrial park, 18 km from Tumkur, was on Monday a beehive of activity, swarming with hundreds of officials and policemen.
Called India Foodpark, it is touted as a one-stop farm-to-fork destination that will see farmers from all of south India coming together with the food processing industry. Why Tumkur? Says India Foodpark CEO Praveen Dwivedi, "Tumkur, an education hub, has abundant human capital, it's on National Highway 4, and is an hour's drive from Bengaluru. We couldn't have asked for a better location."
There’s more in store for Tumkur. It's also to be the site for one of the first of PM Modi's 100 Smart City projects. Tumkur District Commissioner Dr Sathya Murthy told Deccan Chronicle, however, that "it's too early to talk about it", adding that he was waiting for the Centre's guidelines for the project.
But HMT factory to wind down
They say time and tide wait for no one. And HMT Watches, the nation's 'time keeper' during the heyday of the socialist economy, is finding out. As the PSU's watch division begins to wind down operations in phases, the watch components factory in Tumkur, set up in 1978 at a time when HMT's quartz wrist watches were doing a roaring business, is set to shut down soon. — G.S. Srinivas
17 food parks across the country
New Delhi: Government will approve 17 food parks across the country over the next few months, attracting investments of about Rs 2,100 crore, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said. Badal said the government has sanctioned 20 new cold chain projects.
When Tumkur becomes a ‘Smart City’, expect it to have ‘intelligent’ infrastructure -- integrated transport and power systems, homes that can be managed with a smartphone, all built on a backbone of sensors and information and communication technologies. Oops, it might well leave Bengaluru behind!