Rs 600 crore grant to speed up railway projects in state

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  The Ministry of Railways and the state government have worked out an arrangement to release additional grants to the tune of over Rs 600 crore, contributing Rs 300 crore each. (AP/File)
  In his first gesture for his home state Karnataka, Railways Minister Mallikarjun M Kharge has put on fast-track several long pending projects, including the Kottur-Harihar and Kadur-Chikmagalur lines and the gauge conversion of Kolar-Chikballapur line.

  At a meeting here on Monday, the Ministry of Railways and the state government worked out an arrangement to release additional grants to the tune of over Rs 600 crore. The state government and the railways would release Rs 300 crore each.

  Kharge, who reviewed the status of the projects, said the additional grants would be utilised to speed up ongoing projects, which were taken up on a cost-sharing basis.

  The total funds earmarked to complete the works for 2013-14 would be about Rs 1,200 crore.

  “With this, the pace of several works taken up for doubling, electrification and laying new lines in the state will get a boost,” he said.

  A decision to release additional grants for the ongoing projects was taken at the review meeting with senior-level officials of the state government, including Chief Secretary S V Ranganath, Principal Secretary to PWD Venkataiah and General Managers of South Central Railways (DCR), South Western Railways (SWR) and Central Railways (CR).

  According to Kharge, there are small hiccups involving land acquisition for the Kadur-Chikmagalur new line.

  “The state government officials who were present at the meeting promised to clear the hurdles as early as possible. The Kadur-Chikmagalur line is expected to be commissioned by November,” he said.

  The Kolar-Chikballapur gauge conversion, to be completed by December-end, is also facing land acquisition problem and the state government is yet to hand it over to the railway authorities.

  Work on the Gadwal-Raichur line is expected to be commissioned by August 15. Kharge said it was also decided to advance the commissioning of the Hutgi-Gulbarga doubling by one year. It was supposed to be completed by 2015-16.

  The new Hassan-Bangalore line has encountered land acquisition problem near Kunigal stud farm, he said. The Chief Secretary has promised to solve it expeditiously, he added.

  The Bidar-Gulbarga new railway line was completed till Humnabad section in Bidar district and shuttle services would be operated on it soon.

  Kharge hinted that it would take another two to three years for the Humnabad-Gulbarga section to be completed, and the process of inviting tenders for the construction of the 1.5 km tunnel in that line has begun.

  Attributing the delay in completing the doubling work of Mysore-Bangalore section to the relocation of Tipu Sultan’s armoury near Srirangapatna, he said: “By securing permission from the Archeological Survey of India to relocate the historical structure, all hurdles have been cleared now.”

  Kharge ruled out the possibilities of hiking railway fares now. “The burden of increase in the prices of petroleum products would be absolved by the Ministry and will not be transferred to commuters,” he said.

70 per cent excess sowing of Kharif crops this year

Sowing of foodgrains, cashcrops and oilseeds is underway in full swing across the State and by June-end 27.62 lakh hectares has been covered.

This constitutes 37 per cent of the targeted area of 74.29 lakh hectares for the kharif season. The sowing is 70 per cent in excess compared to corresponding coverage of last year’s 16.07 lakh hectares.

Crops like cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, maize and soybean have seen above normal quantity of sowing.

According to Agriculture Department data, there has been above normal sowing in Bangalore, Bidar, Chitradurga, Davangere, Mandya, Ramnagar and Gadag districts. However, sowing is going on in slow pace due to shortage of rain in the districts of Gulbarga, Bijapur and Yadgir.

“The State has so far distributed around 2.59 lakh quintals of seeds to around 7.91 lakh farmers. This apart, an additional 1.89 lakh quintals of seeds is available in various Raitha Samparka Kendras. With a total requirement of 23.40 lakh tonnes of fertilisers for the season, we have already distributed 6.61 lakh tonnes to the farmers,” Director of Agriculture K V Sarvesh said.

Meanwhile, taking a dig at the government, Opposition Leader in the Assembly H D Kumaraswamy said: “As against the requirement of 9.2 lakh tonnes of fertiliser (from April to June), farmers have availed around 6 lakh tonnes. In reality, this clearly indicates that the farmers are unable to purchase fertilisers due to its high cost.”

221 mm Rainfall

According to the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre data, the state as a whole recorded 221 mm rainfall as against the normal rainfall of 205 mm during June. However, the cumulative rain for the month was deficit by 15-25 percent in Yadgir, Dharwad, Kolar and Chikballapur districts.

For June, of the 176 taluks, the rainfall was excess in 61 taluks, normal in 82 and deficit in 33 taluks. Last year for the same period rainfall was excess in three taluks, normal in 14 taluks, deficit in 83 taluks and scanty in 76 taluks.

Storage Tanks

Of the total 3,524 minor irrigation tanks in the state, only two per cent of the tanks had storage of more than 50 per cent of their total capacity. While 26 per cent of the tanks had storage capacity of 30 per cent to 50 per cent and the remaining 72 per cent of the tanks were dry, a KSNMDC report said.

Karnataka to set up 3 manufacturing zones for new industries

Bangalore, July 5 (IANS) The Karnataka government would set up three National Investment Manufacturing Zones (NIMZ) across the state to become a preferred location for new industries, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said Friday.

"The central government has granted approval to set up an NIMZ in about 12,000 acres of land near Tumkur. We are also trying to get approval for two more NIMZs at Gulbarga and Kolar," Siddaramaiah told captains of industry at an interactive session here.

Tumkur is about 70 km from Bangalore, while Gulbarga and Kolar are about 650 km and about 100 km, respectively, from the state capital.

The NIMZ are being set up across the state to increase the sectoral share of manufacturing in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 25 percent over the next decade and generate 100 million more jobs in the sector through an annualgrowth rate of 12-14 percent, as envisaged in the national manufacturing policy of the central government.

"Though Karnataka is already an ideal investment destination in the country, we would like to position the state as a preferred location for new industries," the chief minister said addressing at the two-day national council of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) where about 100 top executives of India Inc are participating.

Noting that industry and services sectors played a vital role in the economy, Siddaramaiah said while the services sector contributed a whopping 59 percent to the state GDP, the manufacturing sector was lagging behind at less than 25 percent annually.

"Hence our focus will be on the manufacturing sector to increase its contribution to the state GDP substantially in line with the national manufacturing policy. We are committed to make the state a preferred destination for investments in diverse industries with attractive schemes and incentives," Siddaramaiah asserted.

In this context, the chief minister reminded India Inc that the pro-active policies of successive governments in the state had led to phenomenal growth of knowledge-based industry in the state, especially Bangalore, as evident from the presence of global firms in IT and biotechnology over the last two decades.

"Global firms have made Bangalore their research and development (R&D) base to pilot next generation businessmodels. This tech hub is also home to aviation and aerospace manufacturing and cutting-edge technologies in diverse verticals," Siddaramaiah noted.

The state government is also partnering with the central government to set up the country's first Information TechnologyInvestment Region (ITIR) near Devanahalli, about 40 km from city, in about 10,000 acres of land to expand and accelerate the growth of the knowledge sector, especially IT-enabled services and products.

Observing that the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) play a critical role by accounting for 45 percent of industrial output and 40 percent of exports, the chief minister urged stakeholders to promote the support sector for achieving the 12-14 percent growth rate envisaged in the manufacturing policy.

Assuring the industry of the state's support in facilitating investments in the manufacturing sector, Siddaramaiah said the government would pursue a cluster approach for the uniform growth of the industry beyond Bangalore at Belgaum, Dharwad, Hubli and Mysore.

"Besides simplifying investment procedures, developing tier-two and tier-three cities and rural infrastructure, we will showcase Mysore (about 150km from Bangalore) as a major investment destination on the global map," he added.