The Karnataka government on Thursday signed MoUs (memorandums of understanding) with 23 companies spread across various sectors such as electric vehicles, data centres, aerospace and defence, to attract investments worth over Rs 28,000 crore and generate nearly 15,000 direct jobs. It also said that it intends to emerge as the number one investment destination in the coming years. The MoUs were signed in the presence of Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and Large and Medium Industries Minister Jagadish Shettar among others. According to an official release, some of the leading deals in the ‘Invest Karnataka’ event include a Rs 4,015 crore MoU with C4V, a leading US-based Li-ion cell manufacturer and a Rs 5,000 crore MoU with Adani Data Centers to set up data centres in Karnataka, among others.
"Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 last year, the Karnataka government has cleared more than 520 projects of industries with a total investment of Rs 77,000 crore, spanning multiple sectors. Additionally, there are proposals and MoUs submitted worth Rs 23,000 crore, thus taking the total investment to Rs 1 lakh crore," Yediyurappa said, speaking at the event.
This marks the strong commitment of investors despite the challenging COVID-19 scenario to select Karnataka as an investment destination, he noted. Despite the challenging pandemic situation in the country and across the world, Karnataka has garnered Rs 28,600 crore worth of investments in the last six months in the form of MoUs and investment proposals, the release said. These investments are spread across sectors, with marquee global and Indian organisations expressing their interest to invest in the state.
"We want to retain Karnataka's position as a global manufacturing hub and place Karnataka on the global manufacturing value chain. Hence, the Government of Karnataka has been actively working to promote tier-2 and tier-3 regions of the state by developing multiple sector-specific clusters," Shettar said. We have developed dedicated clusters for Toys in Koppal, Consumer Electronics in Dharwad, Pharmaceuticals in Yadgir, to name a few, he added. The Karnataka government has decided to host the Global Investors Meet (GIM) in Bengaluru from February 9 to 11 next year.