Mysore, May 21 (JP)- The City is to have an IT Special Economic Zone (SEZ) soon on 30 acre plots and will house both IT and IT-enabled services. Apart from Mysore, Dharwad and Kolar are the other two IT SEZs.

A total of seven SEZs for the State will be proposed during the Global Investors Meet (GIM) on June 3 and 4. Of the seven SEZs, three are in information technology, one each in aerospace, textile, food processing and pharmaceutical sectors.

The move to create IT SEZs has been in the pipeline from 2006 when Infosys had proposed to set up two IT SEZs, one in Mysore and the other in Mangalore.

Reddy's Bellary takes the cake

Meanwhile, it is learnt that the mineral rich Bellary, the home of Reddy Brothers, is all set to garner the major chunk of investment during the GIM.

Of the Rs.3 trillion investment promised so far, steel and cement companies such as Lafarge India Pvt. Ltd, Arc-elorMittal India Ltd and Posco-India Pvt. Ltd occupy the largest share. More than half of this is in north Karnataka, said sources in the government.

In the previous Karnataka GIM, held in 2000, one-third of the pro-mised investment of Rs.29,000 crore went to information technology (IT) and was Bangalore-centric. Of the 70-odd projects clea-red for the GIM slated for June 3rd and 4th, only about 20% are in and around Bangalore.

ArcelorMittal, for example, is planning a 4,000-acre steel plant accompanied by a 500-acre township and another 500 acres of ancillary industries in Bellary. 'The project is as important to ArcelorMittal as it is to the Kar-nataka government,' said a senior ArcelorMittal executive, who didn’t want to be named.

Among other large investments committed so far are a Rs.32,336 crore steel plant by Posco-India and Lafarge’s proposal for a Rs.1,500 crore cement and thermal plant.

"Steel and cement are significant lead investments in a State because they propel the growth of support servicing industries. So the rate of follow-up investments goes up," said Aroon Raman, Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Karnataka chapter. "Investors are more serious this time and even if a good proportion of Rs.3 trillion of promised investments happens, it is good enough."

The aerospace sector takes the third slot in investments after steel and cement. The proposed investments in aerospace include a Rs.465.8 crore project by Dynamitic Technologies Ltd and a Rs.127 crore venture by Star-ragHeckert Machine Tools Pvt. Ltd, both to make components in north Bangalore.

Courtesy : Star Of Mysore