Bangalore: At the just-concluded CII Partnership Summit, Karnataka has projected what remains its core strength: information technology and biotechnology.

The focus was turned on Bangalore's software industry. And the fact that it is the fourth largest technology cluster in the world, after Silicon Valley, Boston and London, and expanding more rapidly. This sector now employs three lakh professionals here with exports amounting annually to $8.4 billion (2005-06 figures compiled by the State's investment facilitator, Karnataka Udyog Mitra). The projection for the current fiscal is $10 billion.

The State Government can quote authoritative sources: the NASSCOM-McKinsey Report 2005 estimates a 25 per cent year-on-year growth for this sector in Karnataka with exports reaching $18 billion by 2010 and providing jobs to one million professionals.

"Bangalore" has also entered the dictionary as a global outsourcing hub for IT and BT-enabled services.

Further boost for the IT sector comes in the industrial policy with a 1,400-acre electronic hardware park near the Devanahalli airport, Earth Stations and Incubation Centres in Tier 2 cities such as Mysore and an IT special economic zone spread over 450 acres of land in Mangalore.

Also planned is the Knowledge City near Bidadi just outside Bangalore, covering 9,600 acres.

The Udyog Mitra report refers to both huge growth potential and investment in hardware with several international majors involved.

They include Dell, Cisco, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard; many of their new facilities are likely to be located here.

There are weaknesses too; despite progress in chip design, India lags behind in semi-conductor fabrication facilities to make the chips that lie at the heart of the IT revolution.

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