'Come to Tumakuru', BS Yediyurappa woos consul-generals

Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Wednesday told consul-generals of various nations that Karnataka had attracted the highest FDI at Rs 10,000 crore, wooing them to invest in “one of India’s largest industrial townships” coming up at Tumakuru.

During an interaction with more than a dozen consul-generals, Yediyurappa discussed trade and investments, especially in key sectors such as IT, services, machine tools, manufacturing, and so on. Consul-generals of Spain, Poland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Rwanda, and others were there.

“The state has secured the highest FDI among all Indian states in the April-June 2020 quarter, with FDI of over Rs 10,000 crore,” Yediyurappa said, according to a statement from his office.

“Moreover, Karnataka has attracted 50% of the investment proposals in India, amounting to Rs 1.1 lakh crore between January and May this year,” he said.

Yediyurappa said that Tumakuru, about 70 km from Bengaluru, would be home to one of India’s largest industrial townships with 10,000 acres of the planned area.

“We will be pleased to provide infrastructure for your companies as well, to make it easy for them to invest in Karnataka,” Yediyurappa said. Tumakuru has been identified as an industrial node as part of the Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (IBIC).

Bullish on ease-of-doing-business reforms, Karnataka has taken up several policy measures. Yediyurappa said the reforms initiated in the last six months would help attract investments and develop Tier-II cities such as Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad, and Belagavi.

“The critical policy reforms are procurement of land, labour and amendment of Karnataka Industries (Facilitation) Act that allows any approved project to start without any downstream approvals,” Yediyurappa said, promising to bring ease to regulatory compliance for businesses.