Southern States - Karnataka   

Krishna promises priority for regional centres

By Our Staff Correspondent

Karwar Dec. 20. The Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, said here on Saturday that the State Government will give importance to developing regional centres such as Hubli-Dharwad, Mysore, Gulbarga, and Mangalore. He was speaking after inaugurating the Coastal Investors' Meet at the Rabindranath Tagore Beach.

Noting that there had only been Bangalore-centric growth so far, he said the State Capital could develop in spite of the Government. It was time special attention was given for the development of the regional centres. He directed the Minister for Large and Medium-Scale Industries, R.V. Deshpande, to take steps towards this end.

Expressing disappointment over what he described as the Union Government's delaying the work on an international airport in Bangalore, Mr. Krishna said the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, laid the foundation stone for the project two years ago and a consortium was formed to start the work. There was a limit to the people's patience, he added.

Noting that the State had made remarkable progress in information technology, he said while there were 1.25 lakh professionals in that field at the Silicon Valley in the U.S., Bangalore had 1.5 lakh of them. Many industrialists born after Independence had the vision to build companies such as Infosys Technologies, Wipro, and so on. Some people were sceptical and cynical about such ventures, but fortunately, they formed a minuscule minority. The post-Independence industrialists had faith in themselves and the country. It was the Congress Government led by P.V. Narasimha Rao, with Manmohan Singh as the Finance Minister, which opened up Indian economy. Now the country had foreign exchange reserves of $ 97 billion. The debt service ratio was just one per cent of the gross domestic product which was expected to grow by seven per cent. He said Indian industrialists were now investing abroad. The people of the country should be proud of the achievements of the private sector. The coastal districts of Uttara Kannada, Udupi, and Karwar were in the forefront of development due to the enterprising nature of the people.

Mr. Deshpande said the State, a leader in information technology and biotechnology, was the first to host the Global Investors' Meet and the Coastal Investors' Meet. The former led to an investment of over Rs. 10,000 crores. The coastal districts had good roads and educational institutions. They were the cradles of the banking industry.

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