The State of Karnataka, which has envisaged an investment requirement of $6 billion every year, is proposing for an Infrastructure Development and Regulatory Bill. The state government is also planning to establish a Rs 500 crore fund for infrastructure development.
Speaking at the South India Infrastructure Investment Summit 2011, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Chennai, Raj Kumar Khatri, secretary, infrastructure development
department, government of Karnataka said the proposed Bill is to facilitate, regulate and mitigate risk in infrastructure investments.
He also said, the bill would provide a single point body to facilitate formation of special purpose vehicles and for dispute resolution and arbitration. “The purpose of this bill is to provide a legal framework for infrastructure development through Public Private Partnerships (PPP), incorporating contractual arrangements to design, finance, construct, operate and maintain infrastructure projects. It will also provide a fair and transparent selection process, set out rights and obligations of the government and private sector in the implementation of infrastructure projects, reduce administrative and procedural delays, set out incentives, specify project delivery process, establish an infrastructure authority with a view to present bankable projects to the private sector and generally to improve the delivery of public services in the state of Karnataka,” he said.
Government will remit an amount of at least Rs 100 crore every year from the infrastructure initiative fund or the state Budget as the case may be, the official said. Further Khatri said, Karnataka’s focus was on manufacturing, and investments were invited in sectors like automobile, aviation and precision engineering. Natural gas would be available in the state with the completion of the pipeline from Dhahej to Bangalore through Belgaum. He also said, there is a scope for gas-based projects like fertilisers, he said.