The Karnataka government on Thursday said it would promote tech-based industries in six cities by offering firms a slew of incentives as part of its new ‘Beyond Bengaluru’ initiative, even though previous such attempts yielded no results.
The ‘Beyond Bengaluru’ initiative will focus on Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad and Shivamogga, Kalaburagi and Belagavi, said Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan, who also holds the IT/BT portfolio.
“There were efforts to develop these cities earlier, but their full potential was not realised,” Narayan said, referring to the difficulty in creating an alternative to Bengaluru. “But now, the time is conducive to go beyond Bengaluru in the wake of reverse migration that happened because of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
The government wants to leverage talent that left Bengaluru during the pandemic by promoting the growth of IT/ITeS, BPO, ESDM and telecom sectors in smaller cities.
“At present, cities other than Bengaluru are contributing just 5% of the total revenue and this needs to be increased for the state to contribute towards the trillion-dollar digital economy target of 2025,” Narayan said.
The minister said a task force has been established comprising industry, academia and other stakeholders to prepare a whitepaper to enable the ‘Beyond Bengaluru’ mandate.
According to Narayan, the government has resolved connectivity issues in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities by working with telecom companies. “More needs to be done. We’ve reached 5G, but we’re still trying to get 4G in every corner of the state.”
Narayan also formally released the state’s new IT Policy for 2020-25 that aims to generate over 60 lakh direct and indirect jobs in the sector.