MYSURU: Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani said that Karnataka and Bengaluru are the front runners in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and urged young talents to become entrepreneurs rather than looking for government jobs.
Speaking after the inauguration of “Be an Entrepreneur - become an employer” workshop, he said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai have come up with many programmes to encourage youngsters to set up industries.
Karnataka has 288 Research and Development Units, the highest in the world, he said, adding that Karnataka is an investor-friendly state, attracting 48 per cent FDI and the state is leading in IT-BT, defence, gems exports. He said that the semiconductor policy will generate 1 lakh jobs.
Announcing that the government is keen to encourage investment in tier II cities, he said that Nalwadi Krishnaraja a visionary, who had started 150 industries, and was an inspiration to many including himself.
I started an industry investing Rs 10 lakh and have set up 21 industries employing 72,000 people, he added. Lauding Modi for encouraging bio-diesel production, he said that Centre is spending Rs 1 lakh on each candidate per year to work in R&D units.
FKCCI initiative for budding entrepreneurs
FKCCI has received appli-cations from 625 teams from 185 institutions for its initiative to select and enc-ourage good startup ideas from aspiring entrepreneurs from Karnataka and other southern states. FKCCI pres-ident IS Prasad said while the top 20 teams will get Rs 1 lakh each as a cash prize, they will also get seed money from Udan New Horizon of Engineering Colle Benga-luru and Atal Incubation Center, NITTE Institute.