J H Patel Exhorts Americans To Invest In Karnataka

Karnataka Chief Minister J H Patel urged American investors to eschew spending millions of dollars on research on the Moon and Mars and instead invest in his state.

Patel is leading a high-powered delegation comprising senior officials of the Karnataka government and industry leaders to the US as part of the Karnataka Investment Initiative.

The Chief Minister said, Let this visit of ours be pragmatic. Take up some projects and do it instead of going on exploring what happens in Moon and what happens in Mars! Lets have some result-oriented discussions and pragmatic conclusions.

Speaking at a reception by the Congressional Caucus on India and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Patel said the purpose of his visit was to nail down American investment in Karnataka in key sectors like infrastructure, food processing and floriculture, urban development, information technology, tourism and manufacturing industries.

 

Asserting that Karnataka hardly had any political risks for investors, he said American investment was the highest in the state, accounting for nearly 25 per cent of total foreign investment.

Patel said that unlike many Indian states, Karnataka in general and Bangalore in particular offered tremendous investment opportunities because it had excellent climatic conditions and was devoid of labour management problems and political problems.

Patel placed special emphasis on the opportunities that the tourism sector in Karnataka afforded American investors saying tourism does not mean come to Delhi, go around Jaipur, Jodhpur and see some desert and have a camel ride and come back.

He said in Karnataka We do not have a desert, but we have everything else.

He asserted that Karnataka has never had communist obstacles, weve never had any kinds of obstacles except that chicken (Kentucky Fried Chicken - KFC) problem.

But he said that even the KFC problem had been resolved to the satisfaction of the American investor and the tough stance adopted by the state government against the detractors clearly demonstrated that we are not going to allow anybody to take the law into their own hands. We are law-abiding citizens and our government is a law-abiding government.

He noted that a power project involving the American power company Cogentrix which was almost forgotten, which was thrown into the dustbin, we picked it up and Deve Gowda, when he was Prime Minister, cleared it and now only the formalities are to be cleared.

He said, India is a democracy committed to a Constitution so foreign investors would not be thrown out or nationalisation be imposed at will as each individual act of the government is questionable and adjudicatable.

Making sure that potential investors get the message that the political risk in India is minimal or nothing at all vis-a-vis the security of their investments, Patel said, Our courts are very active like in the American democracy and we believe in the rule of law.

He said it did not matter which party formed the government in New Delhi or which party may rule Bangalore or Karnataka, we are bound by the Constitution. It did not matter that a coalition government was ruling in New Delhi and that a Janata Dal government was in power in Karnataka because it has nothing to do with our economic activities.

Patel expressed some irritation over investors who simply sign MoUs (memoranda of understanding) but do not follow through in the implementation of the projects either by themselves or in joint ventures with Indian industry in Karnataka.

We need some fast implementation of the projects, he asserted. Just talking and signing MoUs and then going and forgetting about it, that is not good.

All these talks at paper level have been going on for the last 10 years, which is not good for either the investor or for our state, he added.

For such would-be investors, Patel said instead of continuing to look for more and more partners, its better that they stick to the projects that have been cleared now and let the work begin as further delays would only lead to cost escalation.

The delegation accompanying Patel includes R V Deshpande, minister for large and medium industries and infrastructure development; M C Nanaiah, minister for law and parliamentary affairs; C Gopal Reddy, chairman and managing director of the Karnataka State Industrial Investment and Development Corporation; and Arvind Jadhav, commissioner for industrial development and director of industries and commerce.

Before coming to Washington, the delegation spent two days in Pittsburgh and are slated to spend two days in New York and Boston, Massachusetts before leaving for London by months end.