JOIN US22,000 acres identified for industries, acquisition fast-tracked
Karnataka has identified 22,655 acres of land that will be acquired for industries, making this the biggest such activity in one go in recent times.
Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani has fast-tracked the land acquisition process considering the demand coming from industries.
These 22,655 acres are spread across 28 locations in the state, including 2,356 acres in Hanagodu (Mysuru), 1,489 acres in Masthenahalli (Chikkaballapur), 1,200 acres in Hulikunte (Bengaluru Rural), 1,129 acres in Badanaguppe (Chamarajanagar), 1,000 acres in Anekal (Bengaluru Urban) and so on.
“The land acquisition process will take anywhere between one and six months,” Nirani told DH.
“They will go through various stages: price negotiation, preliminary notification and the final notification.”
Nirani said his target is to identify and acquire 50,000 acres of land for industries before the flagship Invest Karnataka summit scheduled to be held in November this year.
At a recent Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) meeting, where he reviewed the acquisition process, Nirani directed officials to immediately allot litigation-free land to industries without any delay.
Elaborating on this, Nirani said much of the dispute is to do with compensation.
“Along the highway, for example, the same rate would have been fixed for land in a 1-km radius. This leads to disputes. So, what I’ve asked officials to do is to have different rates for 100 m and 200 m from the highway,” he said.
“No land will be acquired by force. All the lands will be acquired with consent of the owners,” he added.
Nirani wants to create a landbank that can be showcased to investors at the Invest Karnataka summit. In the review meeting, Nirani said the government is receiving many inquiries from “big-ticket” investors even as new policies on aerospace & defence, semiconductors and ethanol are in the pipeline.
The government’s new industrial policy estimated a requirement of 41,600 acres of land for industrial use by 2025.
If Nirani’s target is met, the government will acquire all the land much before 2025.
Earlier this month, the government notified an amendment to the KIADB rules that any company with a 10-year lease-cum-sale agreement need not wait for 10 years to buy the land.
If the company has utilised 50% of the allotted land and fulfils other conditions, sale deed will be executed two years from the date of commercial production.