BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has, on Thursday, decided to do away with trade licensing and orders in this connection will be notified shortly, Additional Chief Secretary, Industries and Commerce Department, K Ratna Prabha said on Friday.
She was responding to a grievance aired by J Crasta, former president of Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI), during an interactive meet organised by its parent body, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Crasta said even though more than nine months have elapsed since the state’s industrial policy was announced, nothing has been done to implement it. “The assurance to abolish trade licence has not yet been met and it exists only on paper,” he said.
Ratna Prabha said a silent industrial revolution is taking place in the state. “There has been investment to the tune of Rs 95,000 crore in Karnataka during the last two years, but we did not inform the media about it,” she said.
A government website which compared all the states has put Karnataka in the fifth position regarding investments and ranked it below Odisha and Chhattisgarh, she said. “They have taken our investment figure at just Rs 45,000 crore,” she pointed out.
The thrust of the new industrial policy has been to decongest Bengaluru and facilitate investment by offering incentives in Hyderabad-Karnataka region and North Karnataka, she said.
Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee said exports from Karnataka stood at Rs 3 lakh crore. He called upon industries to create a green economy by developing zero-effluent industries.
“The state will never be an efficient viability gap-funder as it will always be short of resources,” he said and added that a long queue to avail subsidies already exists.
Tourism Meet in City
The city will host a major tourism show from September 6 to 8 where 70 to 80 countries are expected to participate, said FICCI president Jyotsna Suri.
Briefing the media on the sidelines of the national executive committee meeting of FICCI, Suri praised the policies of the Modi government saying it created stability and aimed at taking the country on a growth trajectory. “It will take 18-24 months for the results to show, but some green shoots are visible now,” she said.
Chairman of Karnataka State Council of FICCI, K Ullas Kamath, said Hero Honda moving away from Karnataka was linked to better incentives provided by other states.
A business meet will be held for the first time in Bengaluru on October 5 and 6 which will bring together Indian and Central European business leaders, he said.