JOIN USIndustries Minister Murugesh Nirani on Monday said around 5,000 acres of the 40,000 acres of land notified by his department during the Global Investor’s Meet-I had been denotified.
Speaking to reporters in Bangalore, Nirani said around 1,400 acres were denotified in Davangere, 1,200 acres in Mangalore, and 800 in Belgaum.
He said the lands were denotified because of pressure from farmers. Of the 387 firms that signed MoUs during the investors’s meet in June 2010, about 40 per cent had backed out, he said.
He did not specify any reason, but said the remaining 60 per cent would complete their projects in the next three years.
Nirani said around 80 Fortune 500 companies, including the Reliance Group, would sign MoUs during GIM 2 to be held on June 6, 7 and 8. Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural function. Special focus will be on the implementation of high-speed rail projects.
The government has planned rail links from Chennai to Bangalore to Mysore, and from Hubli to Belgaum in the first phase; from Bangalore to Hubli and Bangalore to Gulbarga in the second phase.
Nirani said a technical expert, who has worked on several high-speed rail projects in Japan, will visit Bangalore in June and give his suggestions to the government.
“The travel time from Bangalore to Mysore, for instance, will be only 25 minutes,” he said. Nirani said the government would focus on implementation of the tunnel road project in the Western Ghats to cut down the travel time from Bangalore to Mangalore.
When asked what the government would do to meet the water needs of companies in the drought-hit North Karnataka districts, Nirani said his department was focusing on projects to recycle waste water.
He said an expression of interest for Rs 1,000 crore was called for, and companies, including Ion Exchange, Thermax, Triveni Engineering, had evinced interest.
He said seven to eight places in Bangalore had been identified for setting up the recycling units. In phase two, units will be set up in Mysore, Mangalore, Gulbarga, Hubli and Belgaum, he said. The minister said Union Energy Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde would preside over the ground-breaking ceremony for the 2600-MW Kudagi thermal power project in Bijapur in June.
Lokayukta case
On his name being excluded from the charge sheet filed against him in the Lokayukta court, Nirani said private complainant Alam Pasha was causing “injustice to a lot of people, besides wasting the time of the courts and the police”.