Karnataka Approaches Harvard Body

The Karnataka government on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Harvard Institute of International Development (HIID) to revamp its industrial policy over the next five years.

The agreement was signed by Karnataka chief secretary B K Bhattacharya and Harvard Institute director Jefferey D Sachs. Under the agreement, HIID will undertake policy-oriented research on some identified sectors of the Karnataka economy and advise the government on policy reforms focusing on industrial, education and health sectors.

Talking about the agreement, Sachs said, "For a variety of reasons, Karnataka seems to be well placed with a comparative advantage in the services sector including areas like software, health care, tourism, education and financial services."

This is the second agreement HIID signing in India with the first being with Tamil Nadu on similar line which was agreed upon an year ago.

The precise content of the research for Karnataka will be worked out through discussions between the HIID advisors and the representatives of the state government. These would be areas of importance identified by the government of Karnataka where HIID has significant strengths and global exposure.

To begin with areas such as social sector expenditure, rural development programmes, value added tax, competitiveness of local industry and evaluation of industrial policy including industrial incentives, concessions and subsidies will be dealt upon.

In addition to this, the agreement will encompass policies required to promote labour intensive manufacturing and service sector exports, the socio-economic issues of software industry in Bangalore, besides infrastructure development and foreign investment and demand and supply of skilled manpower.

From these broad areas specific problems would be identified and subject to mutual agreement, work on these areas will take place over a period of five areas as part of the HIID's India programme.