Biotech park work to begin on July 11

Announcing this at an awards function organised by the Department of Science and Technology on Wednesday, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa said, the park was being developed by Alexandria Real Estate Equities at an initial cost of Rs 500 crore.

The park will be developed in two phases. In the initial phase, a facility spread over 1.5 million sq ft will be constructed on 59 acres of land.

This is expected to take 18 months time. In the second phase, the company will expand it to a total of 4.5 million sq ft of developed space. The total land area of the park is 109 acres.

On lease

Secretary for IT/BT M N Vidyashankar said the park would be one of the biggest biotech parks in India and the land has been given on lease to Alexandria for a period of 60 years.

Yeddyurappa has also agreed to give one acre of land on lease to Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) from the adjacent land occupied by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Rural Energy and Development for the establishment of a nano lab. In a lighter vein, the Chief Minister told Chairman of Scientific Advisory Council to the PM,  Prof CNR Rao to ask whatever was required for strengthening science education and research whether it was money or infrastructure as ‘the treasury is full.’

He assured that the government was also trying to implement most of the recommendations made in the report submitted by the Vision Group on Science and Technology headed by Prof CNR Rao.

Applied sciences

Minister for Science and Technology Krishna Palemar blamed the Centre for not releasing its share of the funds to set up zonal and regional centres of scientific institutions. Prof CNR Rao stressed the need to give prominence to applied sciences and requested the government to provide more infrastructure to science colleges.

The Vision Group on Science and Technology (VGST) gave out awards and grants to 76 researchers, teachers, science communicators and higher educational institutions across six categories.

The mandate of VGST is to recommend policy and programmes for the advancement of science and technology in the State by supporting research and education in all fields of science and engineering.