Janata Dal (Secular) State unit president H.D. Kumaraswamy has demanded a White Paper on the status of Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) signed during the last Global Investors Meet (GIM) 2010.
Addressing media persons on Thursday, he said it was unwise to expect anything great from this edition of GIM, as the conversion rate of projects signed in the previous GIM was dismal. The Bharatiya Janata Party government was holding the meet just as a matter of prestige, he said.
Bottleneck
He sought to know how many MoUs had materialised into projects and infrastructure facilities created for them. He pointed out that non-availability of industrial infrastructure was the major bottleneck for converting promises made in GIM 2010 into reality.
GIM 2010 had focussed on attracting investment in core sectors like power, steel and cement in north Karnataka. However some of them had dropped their plans owing to strict regulations in iron ore mining, he said.
He said it was the responsibility of the government to create conducive atmosphere for investment. The government had lost credibility thanks to political uncertainties and scams against those in power. “Transparency is the key word to succeed in the industrial sector. What was the need to hold a GIM, when Minister for Large and Medium-Scale Industries Murugesh R. Nirani is under a cloud,” he asked.
‘Agriculture suffers'
Acquisition of land by the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Authority (KIADB) to create land bank had led to the agriculture sector bearing the brunt of needless land acquisition.
Essential sector
The government had totally forgotten that the agriculture sector was also important in economic growth, he alleged.
