KSIIDC appointed nodal agency for industrial PPPs

Corporation to work on setting up National Manufacturing Investment Zone, Special Investment Regions in state

The Karnataka government, which is seeking Centre’s approval to set up the National Manufacturing Investment Zone (NMIZ) in Tumkur, has appointed Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (KSIIDC) as the nodal agency to implement the project.

The appointment of KSIIDC as the nodal agency is based on a recommendation from the commissioner of industries.

According to a government order, KSIIDC will take forward the proposed NMIZ besides two other projects such as developing Special Investment Region (SIR) in Dharwad and model industrial layout in Hassan through a public private partnership (PPP) model.

“The state government is looking at taking a holistic and integrated approach towards developing NMIZ or SIR apart from other large industrial investment projects. The role of KSIIDC will be to provide handholding support to various key investment projects. It will provide support from the concept to implementation,” M Maheshwara Rao, Commissioner of industries, government of Karnataka told Business Standard.

The Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry has promoted the idea of NMIZ as part of the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP). This is an initiative to push the share of manufacturing sector in increasing GDP of the country.

The government is targeting to increase the share of the manufacturing sector in the GDP to at least 25 per cent by 2020 from the present 16 per cent. To achieve this target, the government mooted the concept of NMIZs, which will be mega industrial zones with world class supporting infrastructure.

The government is offering a host of incentives like exemption from capital gains tax and a liberalised labour and environment norms to promote these zones. The NMP proposes to create 100 million jobs by 2020.

The main focus of KSIIDC is to provide the required infrastructure to NMIZ or SIR. It will facilitate various approvals from the state and central governments for developing NMIZ in a time bound manner, Rao said.

“In order to implement the NMIZ and SIR in the state, there is a need to undertake pre-feasibility study of the projects, provide all the required escort services to the proposed public private partnership projects at various levels of implementation and monitoring. All these services will be provided by KSIIDC,” Rao said.

The Chief Minister of Karnataka has already addressed a letter to Prime Minister requesting for approval for establishment of two NMIZ in Karnataka, of which one will be in Tumkur. The government is also looking at either Gulbarga or Dharwad for the second NMIZ.