BENGALURU: IT-BT and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Minister Priyank Kharge on Thursday said the government is now working on drawing investors to invest in projects and ideas Beyond Bengaluru and promoting Kalyana Karnataka regions, as they require attention.
Earlier the approach of the government was macro planning, then it shifted to micro planning and now it is nano planning. The government is working on cluster-specific project approach. A blueprint on this is being prepared and it will be released by December 9, Kharge said.
He was speaking to the media at the end of the three-day-long Bengaluru Tech Summit. During the summit interaction with the 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 the 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 during the interaction, industry representatives also pointed out that the young students- 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 in the syllabus upto 50% to meet industry requirements can also be done. This will start from the new academic year. This is apart from the Nipuna scheme which was released in the summit,” he said.
To promote startups, Karnataka will be the first to give startup 2025 awards, where new ideas and achievements will be honoured. From December 9-12, 2024, Bengaluru and Mysuru will host 9th edition of The Indus Entrepreneurs Global Summit for startups in Bengaluru and Mysuru. Further, to bring back women to the workforce who have had breaks due to weddings, maternity leaves and other reasons, special skilling and reskilling programmes will be undertaken, Kharge added.