NRI Habeeb Ur Rahiman Uppinangady conferred doctorate

Bengaluru, Jul 10: The Karnataka cabinet gave its approval for "The Karnataka Contingency Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2020" to enhance the contingency fund limit to Rs 500 crore in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This will be an ordinance making one time enhancement in the limit as the government needs money to make payments immediately, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister JC Madhuswamy told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

Under the contingency fund, the government had room to spend up to Rs 80 crore without budget provision.

"...but this time due to COVID-19 as we had to give money to some sections that were in distress like barbers, flower and vegetable growers, taxi drivers, among others, we have decided to increase the limit to Rs 500 crore," Mr Madhuswamy said.

"As assembly was not in session and as we had to make payments to those in distress immediately, this decision has been taken," he added.

The cabinet today ratified the administrative approval given to carry out civil and electrical works to install medical gas pipeline with high flow oxygen system at district hospitals, taluk and community health centres coming under Health and Family welfare department in view of COVID-19.

The minister said about Rs 207 crore is being approved for this purpose.

It also ratified procurement of medical equipment and furniture for public healthcare institutions of the health and family welfare department worth Rs 81.99 crore.

According to the minister, the cabinet has decided to bring in an amendment to section 9 of the Lokayukta act, which mandates that the preliminary inquiry contemplated by Lokayukta or Upalokayuta should be completed in 90 days and charge sheeting should be completed within six months.

Noting that at the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) cess was being collected, he said as the government had brought in an amendment to the APMC act, there was demand to reduce the market cess. "So we have reduced it from 1.5 per cent to one per cent."

Approval has also been given by the cabinet to bring Karnataka Vidyuth Kharkane (KAVIKA) and Mysore Electrical Industries (MEI), which are presently under the control of Commerce and Industries department, under administrative control of the energy department.

Other decisions taken by the cabibinet include deployment and implementation of "e-procurement 2.0" project on PPP at a cost of Rs 184.37 crore and ratification of the action taken to issue orders on March 24 to release interest free loan of Rs 2,500 crore to ESCOMs for payment of outstanding power purchase dues to generating companies.

The cabinet also gave administrative approval for setting up of an Indian Institute of Information technology at Raichur.

"Under this, we are committed to provide Rs 44.8 crore in four years for infrastructure," the minister added.

Hubballi, Feb 16: Rs 72,000 crore investment proposals were received at the Invest Karnataka meet, here on Friday, for the states northern region, said an official on Saturday.

"About 50 foreign and domestic firms have proposed to invest Rs 72,000 crore in the northwest and northern regions of the state and a dozen companies signed agreements with us," state Industries Department Secretary Gaurav Gupta said.

Rajesh Exports, Bengaluru-based group, signed an agreement to set up a manufacturing unit at Dharwad to rollout electric vehicles and make lithium ion batteries.

"Rajesh Exports proposes to invest about Rs 50,000 crore for manufacturing electric cars and lithium ion batteries for the domestic and overseas markets. It will generate about 10,000 jobs," said Gupta.

Similarly, Sonali Power has signed a pact with the state nodal agency (Udyog Mitra) to set up a solar power plant at Davangere at a cost of Rs 4,800 crore, which will generate 2,100 direct jobs.

Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa claimed several firms had come forward to collectively invest Rs 1 lakh crore since the BJP government came into being in July 2019.

"Many Indian and foreign firms will sign agreements with the state government at the 3-day Global Investors meet in Bengaluru on November 3-5," Yediyurappa said at the 'Invest Karnataka' meet.

Noting that Karnataka was rich in natural and human resources, especially in high-tech and skilled workforce, Yediyurappa said investment opportunities were plenty in aerospace, automobiles, machine tools, electric vehicles and bio-technology besides information technology.

"About 40 global firms expressed interest to invest in the state at a roadshow held at Davos, Switzerland, on the margins of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meet on January 23," he said.

Under the new industrial policy, the state government will set up clusters to make toys at Koppal, textiles in Bellari, solar equipment at Kalaburagi and farm machinery at Bidar.

"We are committed to make North Karnataka a power house of industries for the region's development, with Hubballi-Dharwad as the growth hub," Yediyurappa said.

Bengaluru, May 20: An Air India flight from Dammam in Saudi Arabia landed here with 161 passengers, including 85 for Karnataka and 76 to Hyderabad, an official said on Wednesday. Among Karnataka passengers there were both Bengalureans and Mangalureans.

"AIC-1910 (Airbus A321-211) landed at the city airport at 8.45 p.m. and 85 passengers, including 9 women and one infant alighted here, while 76 will fly to Hyderabad," the airline official said. 

The flight was 45 minutes behind schedule to Bengaluru.

The airline staff and the state government officials received the returnees in the arrival terminal and gave them masks to wear and sanitizer to wash hands.

All the passengers would be screened with thermal device to read their body temperature though only asymptomatic were flown back.

After completing formalities, including immigration check and filling the self-declaration form, the returnees were taken in state-run buses in batches for 14-day institutional quarantine in hotels and resorts across the city.

Passengers have to download the mandatory Quarantine app on their mobile phone before leaving the airport for contact tracing later.

Another evacuation flight from Kuala Lampur in Malaysia to Bengaluru has been cancelled due to Amphan cyclone over the Bay of Bengal that hit the Odisha and West Bengal on the east coast.

The service was the fourth to the southern state in the second phase of Vande Bharat Mission, the national carrier and its Express arm are operating to repatriate thousands of Indians, including distressed workers, migrants, students, senior citizens and tourists, stranded overseas since the government suspended international flights on March 23 and enforced an extended lockdown on March 25 to combat Covid-19 spread.

The first flight in the second phase landed on Monday night at Mangaluru on the state's west coast, with 177 passengers from Dubai in the UAE.

The second flight to the southern state from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia landed here (Bengaluru) on Tuesday evening, with 94 passengers.

The third flight from Muscat in Oman landed here at 6.31 p.m. on Wednesday evening and at Mangaluru on the state's west coast at 8.01 p.m.

The remaining flights to Karnataka will land in Bengaluru and Mangaluru over the next 13 days till June 3 from 12 more destinations the world over.

In the first phase of the mission from May 7-17, the airline and its arm flew 6 flights to the state from May 11-15, bringing in 800 passengers, including 623 to Bengaluru and 177 to Mangaluru from London, Singapore, San Francisco and Dubai.