Karnataka eyes investment of Rs 40,000 crore through KHIR city

Bengaluru: Eyeing a potential investment of Rs 40,000 crore and creation of one lakh jobs over the next five years, the state government on Friday set the ball rolling for a Knowledge, Healthcare, Innovation and Research (KHIR) city, by holding consultative meetings with various stakeholders.

The new investment region is expected to come up within 60 km of the city. Land is being finalised for it, Large and Medium Industries minister M B Patil said.

Patil told reporters here after the meet that the city had the potential to contribute to 4-5% of the GDP. It will be implemented in two phases with 1,000 acres of land being identified for each phase.

Patil said it will be a one-of-a-kind space in the country which will focus on knowledge development, innovation, skill development and manufacturing across various domains. This will include healthcare, information technology, life sciences and pure sciences, he explained.

According to Patil, the state is looking to establish this city on the lines of Singapore’s Biopolis Cluster and Japan’s Kobe Biomedical Innovation Cluster.

IT and BT Minister Priyank Kharge, who was also part of the meeting, further gave insight into the idea of the city and its purpose: “It will focus on academia, then skill development which will in turn enable research and development. It will also focus on innovation by making space for startups and will even include manufacturing, to complete the loop.”

One of the goals through this city was to make healthcare affordable and accessible in the country, he added.

Industry representatives including Kris Gopalakrishnan, Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, Dr C N Manjunath, Gitanjali Kirloskar, Prashant Prakash, Nitin Kamath, Dr Deepak Venugopalan and Dr L S Shashidhar were among those present.

Among the suggestions given to the government, Dr Shetty pointed out how there was a shortage of 50-70 million healthcare workers in the country. A paramedical university is the urgent need. This is because it is the nurses and other staff that take care of the patient and not the doctors, he observed.