BENGALURU: Former chief minister of Karnataka SM Krishna noted that earlier whenever he used to say that Bengaluru will overtake Singapore, nobody used to believe him. “But today, the city has surpassed the economic capabilities of Singapore by a huge margin,” he said at the 66th annual awards ceremony of Bangalore Management Association (BMA) in the city on Saturday.
Krishna, who was also governor of Maharashtra, said almost 45% of revenue for Karnataka comes from Bengaluru. “For some time the city was sidelined and not much development happened, but with the new government and (Deputy CM) D K Shivakumar as Bengaluru Development Minister, I am positive that the silicon valley of India will flourish and ideas of growth will be refocused.” He recalled policies and experiences about infrastructure policies from his tenure and how Bengaluru has progressed.
Adding that at the end of the decade, India will be the third largest economy, and several governments over the years have made it happen by contributing in all spheres. Krishna is a Padma Vibhushan awardee and was felicitated with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the association.
K Ullas Kamath, chairman, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), Karnataka Council, said Karnataka is the only state in the country that has industry, government and academia collaboration and “all of them work in tandem.” He added, “Currently, Karnataka is the third highest contributor to the nation’s GDP at 8.4% after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. In a few years, we should be able to overtake Tamil Nadu by contributing 10% to India’s GDP.”
Encouraging entrepreneurship and pushing for family businesses to find space in mainstream economic development, he said, “We need to create about 21 lakh jobs every year to meet the demand.” For their contributions in different sectors, 18 exceptional individuals from the state were presented with excellence awards by the association at Chancery Pavilion.