BENGALURU: IT-BT and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister Priyank Kharge on Thursday said the government is working on drawing investors to invest in projects and ideas ‘Beyond Bengaluru’. He said the government is working on promoting the Kalyana Karnataka region, as it requires attention.
Earlier, the government’s approach was macro planning, then it shifted to micro planning, and now it is nano planning. The government is working on a cluster-specific project approach. A blueprint on this is being prepared and will be released by December 9, Kharge said.
He was speaking to the media at the end of the three-day Bengaluru Tech Summit. During an interaction with ministers and department heads, some stakeholders pointed out that investors were not keen on investing in projects and ideas of companies in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
This is because they did not trust infrastructure in these regions. They also pointed out that Bengaluru is Tier 3 in congestion and traffic management. While promoting Beyond Bengaluru, the government must promote cities like Udupi, Mangaluru, Hubballi and others as Tier-1 cities, instead of calling them Tier-2 and Tier-3.
Reacting to this, Kharge added that suggestions and inputs from stakeholders and investors have been incorporated and efforts are being made to address them. The government is working with students of 10 colleges in Ranebennur to undertake projects. Under Beyond Bengaluru, the government will support 10,000 startups and most of them are from other cities.
Kharge said that industry representatives pointed out that young student-engineers and graduates were not employable. “So we suggested that companies adopt 100 colleges and work with them to train them for the field. Changes up to 50 per cent in the syllabus to meet industry requirements can also be done. This will start from the new academic year, and is apart from the Nipuna scheme released at the summit,” he said.
Karnataka will be the first to give Startup 2025 awards, where new ideas and achievements will be honoured. From December 9 to 12, 2024, Bengaluru and Mysuru will host the 9th edition of The Indus Entrepreneurs Global Summit for startups. Further, to bring back women to the workforce who have taken breaks for marriage, maternity and other reasons, special skilling and reskilling programmes will be undertaken, Kharge added.