Wednesday, July 13 2005 14:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Karnataka, the silicon region of India, continued to posses rich potential in the IT arena, attracting investments from all over the world, according to Karnataka Chief Minister, Dharam Singh.

Speaking after inaugurating the second international conference on 'Process of Innovation and Learning in Dynamic City-Regions' Singh said the State continued to be the base of IT industry which was evident through the fact that huge IT players had grown their roots in the State.

Bangalore has created a niche for itself as a hub of hi-tech, commercial and industrial activity, but in addition to Bangalore, which has been attracting investments, the other regional cities have also grown in various sectors, including management science, medical education and modern research.

Places like Raichur, Mangalore, Mysore, Manipal were witnessing different degrees of economic development, he said.

The State has also paved the way for other Indian regions in addressing issues like property tax, reduction of stamp duties and in the field of adoption of the latest technology.

Underlining the growing importance of city-regions and clusters, he said that the success of these of clusters lies in the close interaction between enterprises and the global value chains.

An endeavour should also be made to ensure effective e-governance, which was need-based, timely and cost-effective, he observed.

Speaking on the occasion, P G R Sindhia, Minister for Large and Medium Industries, said that Karnataka was one of the few Indian States poised for an industrial revolution, besides Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

However, for such a revolution, industrial growth, economic growth and infrastructure growth would have to move in a coordinated manner because when cities grow the infrastructure would be required to grow in a similar manner.

Development of infrastructure all over the State and addressing the key concern of water scarcity would be of paramount importance in this context, he said.

The Government was not only focussing on Bangalore but was keen that other places like Mysore, Mangalore, Belgaum, Hubli and Gulbarga also grew since all of them besides possessing natural resources also had abundant human resources, he said.

The State already had two 'clusters' in Bangalore and was looking at two-three other clusters in places like Hubli.

On the issue of the abundant human resources possessed by the State, he said that Karnataka annually churned out 40,000 engineering graduates, 10,000 doctors, 5000 MBAs besides thousands of graduates in various other disciplines.

Lauding the organisers for choosing Bangalore as the venue of the second conference, after the first conference held in China, he said unlike China where it was easy to implement decisions because it was a "controlled democracy" in India the constraints of a coalition Government at various States and centres had not made it too easy for political decisions to be implemented.