Infrastructure is key for a ‘smart’ Tumkur

Budget proposal leaves industrialists hopeful, farmers’ leaders apprehensive

The Union Budget’s promise of turning Tumkur into an “industrial smart city” has left industrialists hopeful, even as farmers’ leaders and environmentalists are apprehensive of its impact.

According to chairman of the Tumkur District Commerce and Industries Association Prabhu Sagaranahalli, the industrial smart city project will have township to provide housing for employees working in the industries, hospitals, educational institutions, police station and other amenities. He was optimistic that the policy would result in an economic boom in the region.

The industrial smart city will come up alongside Vasanthnarasapura industrial area on of 12,500 acres of land and will indirectly help the development of the city, but will not directly develop the city of Tumkur, he said.

Mr. Sagaranahalli told

The Hindu that key was providing adequate infrastructure for industries to prosper. “We don’t need subsidies if land, power, water, road, rail and air connectivity and other infrastructure is provided by the government to set up industries,” he said. He said that it was the lack of political will that had led to the government failing to attract industries to tier-II cities.

The former MP G.S. Basavaraj, who was one of the people to push for the industrial corridor and the National Investment and Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ) in Tumkur during the UPA government’s regime, has welcomed the project. He said the move would help people, who were suffering because of drought for the past several years, get employment. It would also check the migration of agricultural labourers to cities such as Bangalore and Mysore in search of jobs due to failure of rain, and help bring down the pressure on the State’s capital’s resources, he added.

Tumkur MP S.P. Muddahanume Gowda said the project would benefit the city and the district. It would give a spurt to business and the economic life of the people would improve, he said.

Environmentalist C. Yathiraju, however, feared that industrial smart city might lead to huge real estate mafia. He said there were already many instances of land being acquired for industry and then being sold as real estate. “Tumkur city and most of the taluks have shortage of drinking water, and the smart city project might make it worse,” he feared.

State Secretary of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha B.S. Devaraj said that any move to grab farmers’ land in the name of industry and industrial smart city would be opposed.