Deshpande kick-starts Vendor Development & Investors Summit 2017 in Bengaluru

The Karnataka government has kick-started a two day summit on Vendor Development and Investors Summit on Thursday at Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) with an aim to leverage on the technology and manufacturing prowess to attain a position of leadership in manufacturing and overall industrial development.

Though the inauguration hosted who's who of India's corporate world, Chief Minister Siddaramiah, Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar skipped the inaugural ceremony.

The summit is expected to act as a common platform for central and state PSUs, mega and large units in identifying vendors of their choice in terms of production capacity and quality standards. This meet is also is also aimed at helping MSMEs understand the need of the OEMs.

The state government is also focusing of small-scale industries at the summit, as 80% of 13.91 lakh jobs created in the last four years were from the SSI sector.

"Karnataka is developing Tumakuru as a major industrial node of Chennai-Bengaluru-Chitradurga Industrial corridor in an area of 50 sqkm. This node is developing as a model industrial cluster with all state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities for MSMEs and OEMs," Large & Medium Industries and Infrastructure Development Minister R V Deshpande said in his inaugural address.

As a part of this cluster, the government is developing a dedicated park for machine tools in an area of more than 500 acres with an investment of over Rs 500 crores.

"People of Karnataka are what make us so successful. We have nurtured a large number of medium and small auxiliary industries that has supported the ecosystem. We are present in every manufacturing sector possible. IT-enabled manufacturing, electric vehicles, robotics, drone technologies and so on. In times of jobless growth - the entrepreneurs of Karnataka have the opportunity to create a large number of jobs. We are the startup capital of the country. We have been successful in creating new-age jobs. They will lead the future SMEs of the country," Kiran Mazumdar, MD, Biocon, said.

The event also marked the laying of foundation stone for Aerospace Common Finishing Facility Center (ACFFC) at Devanahalli. ACFFC will act as an expert organisation that will benefit hundreds of small-scale units in Bengaluru and adjoining areas producing tools and aviation components, assembling units and testing equipment.