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.

Need Private Sector to Help Skill Youths: Mallikarjun Kharge

Mallikarjun Kharge Age: 70 Designation: Railway minister  Career: Elected to the Karnataka State Assembly 10 times since 1972. Elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009 from Gulbarga.Now Hon'ble Railway Minister, Govt. of India. Interests: Reading sports books, removing superstition Q. India has set a target of skilling 50 crore young people by 2022. Do you think it is achievable? A: While we have set the target to have a skilled workforce of 50 crore people by 2022, we have also set a mid-term target of skilling 5 crore people in the 12th plan period. I am sure that with the active involvement of all stakeholders, this is very much achievable. Q. What are the preconditions to achieve this target? Do you think the current policies are good enough? A: We would need active involvement of the states and the private sector in particular to achieve this target. We are trying to ensure that not only our policies but also our implementation system remains in tune with the time and delivers quality with scale. Q. The quality of vocational training at the majority of institutes in India is poor and archaic. What is being done to improve it? A: We have taken a lot of steps to improve the quality, including active involvement of the private sector, training of trainers, funding for upgradation of facilities etc.  These efforts have started showing early results. We will scale up these efforts and take many more new steps to ensure that a majority of the candidates are able to find a job immediately after passing out.  Q. Except for the government giving money to vocational trainees, there is no institutional mechanism (bank loans etc) for funding students. Isn’t it possible to get the private sector involved in financing skill development? A: This is not correct. The government has worked with the Indian Banks’ Association and a scheme for providing credit for vocational course has already been rolled out. A credit guarantee fund for the same is also being set up.  Efforts are being made to mobilise private sector investments in various forms.  We are proposing to set up a good number of ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) and ATIs (Advanced Training Institutes) with active involvement of the private sector. Q. There is a lot of emphasis on capacity building but not on placements.  How do you solve this problem? A: We are focusing on capacity building as well as placements.  We realise that good placements alone will drive more youths to vocational training and therefore we are planning to take a variety of steps, including soft skilling of candidates, better information flow about jobs to candidates living in far-flung areas etc, to solve this problem.  Q. How do you bring more workers from the unorganised sector to the organised sector? A: We need to upskill these workers as well as let them know about opportunities in the organised sector in an easy-to-access manner. Q. There seem to be too many agencies—18 central ministries, NSDC, state governments—active in skill development.  A lot of effort is duplicated.  It was also one of the objections raised by your ministry during the inter-ministerial consultations on NSDA.  How can this be streamlined? A: We need to involve as many players as possible in skill development-related efforts and the task cut out for the country is huge and unprecedented. With the creation of the Cabinet Committee on Skill Development and the NSDA, we hope that things would be coordinated in a better way and we would be able to take all steps required for proper functioning of the skill development eco-system. Q. Isn’t the labour ministry the right place to centralise skill development efforts? Why, for instance, should the finance ministry run a skill development scheme? A: As indicated earlier, the job at hand is too large for any single ministry to handle. The finance ministry is not running any scheme directly, but only helping NSDC set up a much-needed quality training capacity on the private sector side. Q. There are 1,436 MES (Manufacture Execution System) courses approved by the labour ministry. How many of these are actually active?  Is it possible to get broken-down data on how many institutes run courses for each of these? A: As you would agree, from the menu of such large number of MES courses, a few are likely to be more popular than others. There are around 8,000 VTPs (Vocational Training Providers) in the country today through whom these courses are being run. Given the huge potential this scheme can achieve, we are planning for a major revamp of the scheme in the next few months. Q. How much money has the ministry spent on skill development since 2009 when the National Skill Development Policy was articulated? Can you give details of the funding in each of the 73 industry segments? A: The ministry has many windows through which funds are spent for variety of purposes like creation and upgradation of training capacity, training of trainers, funding of per training cost etc. It is difficult to divide the money spent industry segment-wise; for example, as a welder can be absorbed in variety of industry segments. Q. The Cabinet last month cleared setting up of the National Skill Development Agency, which was earlier proposed as an authority.  Hasn’t it effectively rendered the NSDA toothless? A: I don’t think so. Let us wait for the issue of a formal notification for setting up of the NSDA before writing it off. Q. You had misgivings about the NSDA not being accountable to Parliament.  What are your comments? A: NSDA is proposed to be attached with the finance ministry, and thus would be fully accountable to the Parliament. Q. Earlier this year, your ministry and the HRD ministry had clashed over the ownership of vocational qualifications framework.  Why do such tussles happen? A: There was no tussle but some differences in perceptions. We have amicably resolved it already .

Sowing picks up momentum in Gulbarga

                                                                    (THE HINDU)

Farmers engaged in agriculture activity at Gobbur village on the outskirts of Gulbarga city on Tuesday.

However, even 50 p.c. of target for sowing of green, black gram hasn’t been met

Sowing has picked up momentum in Gulbarga district. As per the latest details, farmers have completed sowing on 1,83,708 hectares, which is around 32.16 per cent of the target of 5,71,200 hectares.

However, Joint Director of the Agriculture Department E.T. Balatkar told The Hindu here on Tuesday that owing to lack of widespread rainfall, sowing of the two major short-duration crops — green gram and black gram — had been slow.

As against the target of 40,000 hectares for black gram, farmers have completed sowing only on 17,812 hectares.

Sowing of green gram has been completed only on 13,932 hectares against the target of 30,000 hectares.

“The fact that farmers could not cover even 50 per cent of the targeted area is a matter of concern. This will have an impact on production of pulses in the district.”

Mr. Balatkar said that farmers had very little time left to complete sowing of these two crops.

In all probability they would not be able to cover the targeted area this year.

Red gram

Sowing of red gram, which is the major crop in the district, was also proceeding slowly. Of the target of 3.65 lakh hectares, farmers had completed sowing on 1,03,874 hectares. Mr. Balatkar said the district had recorded a rain deficit of nearly 8 per cent in June, which is crucial for taking up early sowing of kharif crops.

Rainfall

As against the average rainfall of 122 mm in June in the district, the district has received 112.99 mm. However, rainfall has not been widespread. Chittapur taluk was one of the worst affected with a rain deficit of 54 per in June.

While the coverage of cereals has been 20.35 per cent of the target, pulses coverage has been 30.96 per cent, oilseeds 32.23 per cent. Soya bean continued to be the preferred crop with coverage of 10,373 hectares so far against the target of 700 hectares.

Keywords: farming activities, Gulbarga district, crop sowing activities, E.T. Balatkar