Karnataka wooing two car makers

The state is home to factories of Japan's Toyota, Volvo trucks and buses, Sweden's Scania and Tata Marcopolo, among others

BS-Mahesh Kulkarni  |  Bangalore  

January 25, 2014 Last Updated at 21:50 IST

After losing out on key automobile manufacturing projects like Tata Motors' Nano car, the Karnataka government is doing its best to emerge as the next hub for making cars in the country. The government is talking to two large global passenger car makers, including Sweden's Volvo Cars, to set shop in the state, sources in the department of commerce and industries said. They did not reveal who the second car maker would be.

According to sources, Volvo Cars might set up a plant in Narasapura, about 50 km from here, in the Kolar district.

M N Vidyashankar, additional chief secretary, department of commerce and industries, confirmed the talks but declined to reveal which companies the government was pursuing.

The state is home to factories of Japan's Toyota, Volvo trucks and buses, Sweden's Scania and Tata Marcopolo, among others. The government is developing Narasapura as a hub for car makers. Already, Japanese two-wheeler giant Honda has a plant for motorcycles and scooters there, with a capacity of three million units a year. Recently, bus and truck maker Scania opened an assembly plant there. Mahindra Aerospace has also recently opened an aircraft parts factory in the town.

Vidyashankar said the government has received a proposal from companies such as NPR of Japan for setting up an auto parts unit at Narasapura at an investment of Rs 170 crore. Recently, the government approved a proposal from Japan's Toshiba Electric for a parts unit at Rs 290 crore there.

Besides passenger car makers, the government has received a proposal from Hero Motocorp, India's largest two-wheeler maker, for a new plant at Dharwad in the north of the state. The company has proposed to set up its sixth two-wheeler factory at Mummigatti near Dharwad. It aims to invest Rs 1,700 crore to set up a plant with an annual capacity of six million units over four lines.

Hero Motocorp has indicated it required 500 acres for the plant along with a park for units of its 40 vendors. A state committee, headed by chief minister Siddaramaiah, is likely to approve the proposal later this month, Vidyashankar said.

Biotech incubation centre at UAS in Dharwad

New Delhi: Jan 23, 2014 DHNS

The University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad is one of the five state varsities that will be funded by the Centre to set up a biotechnology incubation centre where students will be encouraged to form start-up ventures and solve industrial problems.

Anna University, Chennai; Punjab University, Chandigarh; Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore and University of Rajasthan, Jaipur are the other four universities that will receive monetary aid from the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) and National Innovation Council, headed by Sam Pitroda.

Seed money

“Each university would receive Rs 1.5 crore-Rs 2 crore as the seed money to set up the centre and provide a monthly fellowship of Rs 50,000 for a PhD student and Rs 25,000 for a MSc student. The scheme will be in operation for three years at the moment,” Renu Swarup, Managing Director of BIRAC told Deccan Herald.

The university will share its infrastructure and resources to set up these centres, where commercially attractive ideas will be nurtured and scaled up to the industrial level.

“The industry, when it comes on board, can top up the fellowship as well as the research grant,” she said.

The UAS, Dharwad will focus on developing agriculture products.

25 universities

“In the next three years, we plan to expand the incubation facility in as many as 25 universities,” said K Vijayraghavan, Secretary in the Department of Biotechnology.

Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore have incubation facility to encourage post-graduate and post doctoral students to take up entrepreneurship. But most of the state universities are deprived of these centres.