The Karnataka Government is formulating a policy to drive entrepreneurship in the State, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said.

Speaking at the CII Innovation summit in Bangalore, the Chief Minister told top executives of firms such as Infosys, Wipro and SAP that the State government is considering a policy that would help attract companies that want to invest in startups.

“As India is an entrepreneurial country, I believe entrepreneurship can be accelerated in a regulatory environment by ensuring capital, talent and mentoring,” he added without going into specifics of how the government plans to attract these funds.

However, Siddaramaiah pointed to the success of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) initiative, which was instrumental in kickstarting the IT boom in India.

Contrarian view

This boom, however, is not creating as many jobs in the services sector as the government hoped due to a combination of factors, according to industry watchers.

Indian IT exports, which is predominantly to the US, is coming under intense pressure due to global economic sluggishness. On the other hand, while India is churning out engineers in lakhs every year, their quality is turning out to be a big issue as companies have to invest a considerable amount of their capital in training them, which adds to their costs of doing business.

“India has got to create 15 million jobs every year over this decade to provide employment to its young population. Accelerating entrepreneurship would be key to such employment generation, added CII president and Infosys vice-chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan.

British Deputy High Commissioner Ian Felton, CII Karnataka Council chairman Soumitra Bhattacharya and chief executives of India Inc are taking part in the summit.

IANS adds: As manufacturing and services sectors have the potential to create opportunities for entrepreneurship, he said the paradigm shift would take the Indian economy to the next growth stage, to harness the youth-heavy demography.

“India needs to create 10-15 million jobs a year over the next decade to provide gainful employment to its young population. Accelerating entrepreneurship and attracting investments will be key to such large-scale employment generation,” he said.

Strategic advantages

He said strong manufacturing and engineering capabilities, a large talent pool, huge domestic demand and geographical location offered Karnataka strategic advantages for servicing the global market.

The growing IT-telecom infrastructure presents huge opportunity for technology-focused businesses. Similarly, healthcare industry is projected to grow seven times while expenditure on higher education is poised to expand five times by 2020.

“Urban infrastructure has potential to attract $600 billion investment over the next two decades and power generation needs to be trebled despite the challenges of sourcing it from conventional fossil fuels – coal and gas,” the Chief Minister said.

Balanced growth

With the world going through hard times due to socio-economic crisis, which is making governments and policymakers rethink development, he advocated a balanced growth through productivity, infrastructure, quality of life, equity and environmental sustainability.

“Such a balanced approach will help in creating equilibrium between industrial development and socio-ecological development,” the Chief Minister added.

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