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Bengaluru, Jan 25: To address the grievances of the Industrialists, over the issue of acquisition of land, the state government have plans to dilute the Land Reforms Act, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, said here on Saturday.

Speaking to the media here, on his visit to the World Economic Forum, Davos, recently he said that 'the visit was fruitful and ends with satisfactory note by procuring promises from several Industrial houses to investment in Karnataka'.

Stating that during his five-day stay at Davos, he had met several Industries heads on the sidelines of the summit, and had an interactive meeting with them, Chief Minister said that 'the event had helped us to present our state Karnataka, to convince them about the prevailing industry-friendly environment'.

He said that he had met several heads of global companies, including Arcelor Mittal, Kirloskar, MAHINDRA, Bharat Forge, 2000 Watt, general electrical, Dassault, Dalmia, Lulu Group, Volvo, Nova Nosdik and Domeco.

'The interaction with the corporate heads was encouraging and more investment is expected to flow into Karnataka, in the fields of Mining, Power, Agriculture, Pharma, Education, and Industries.'

Informing that the main grouse expressed by the Industrialists about the bottlenecks being faced in the Land Reforms Act to procure land, he said that 'To make ease of conversion of Agricultural land we have plans to bring amendment and it would be both win-win situation to both Farmers as well as Industries.'

'We have promised them to remove all hurdles, which comes in the way of acquiring land to set up industries, and we have promised to rectify all the administrative problems within a month or two and legal problems in the next couple of months by amending existing laws.'

'We have also plans to present a new Industrial policy in the coming budget and roll out a comprehensive and investor-friendly law', he further said.

Replying to questions, Chief Minister said that 'all those investment proposals which got clearance at the High-Level Clearance Committee would automatically considered as ‘deemed permission’ and start the process of acquisition of land'.

'TheWorldEconomic Forum Summit had also served us as a platform to invite Industrialists to take part in the Karnataka Global Investors Meet scheduled to be held in November this year', he added.

Udupi, Feb 16: Nine people were killed after a private bus collided with a large roadside boulder in Udupi district in Karnataka on Saturday, the police said. The accident took place on Saturday evening, at around 5.45 pm, on the Mulnur Ghat at Abbas Kattingeri in Mala village, while the bus was on its way to Mangaluru from Sringeri, reported the news channel.

The bus, which was reportedly carrying around 35 passengers, was trying to manoeuvre a turn while travelling on a ghat road when the driver allegedly lost control of the vehicle. The vehicle hit a massive boulder and the impact caused seven people to die on the spot. Two others passed away while they were on the way to the hospital.

The deceased passengers have been identified as Radha Ravi, Yogendra, Preetham Gowda, Basavaraju, Angana, Sharul and Ranjitha. The cleaner of the bus was also killed in the accident.

According to reports, the passengers in the bus were mostly in their early 20s and were employees of Vital Records Private Limited near JCK Industrial Park. Century Vital Records is a data security company which works in the Hebbal Industrial Mysuru. The group was visiting Udupi, Hornadu and Kudremukh.

While some of the injured persons were rushed to Manipal hospital, others were taken to the Karkala city government hospital, police said.

The police have said that rash and negligent driving by the driver is likely to have caused the accident. A case has been registered at the Karkala Rural Police Station, the police said.

Last month, three persons were killed and four others were injured after a fatal collision between a van and a bus near Bengaluru. Both the vehicles caught fire after the impact, but while passengers of the bus, travelling from Bengaluru to Shivamogga, managed to escape, the three passengers who were trapped in the van could not escape and were charred to death.

Mangaluru, Jan 1: Led by two local MLAs belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party, dozens of people today forcibly stopped toll fee collection at Talapady toll gate on the outskirts of the city allowing vehicles plying between Karnataka and Kerala on the national highway 66 to travel without paying any fee for some time.

Mangaluru City South MLA D Vedavyasa Kamath and Mangaluru City North MLA Y Bharat Shetty, who led the workers, said that the Navayuga Udupi Tollway Pvt. Ltd. (NUTPL), the concessionaire of the about 90-km-long highway widening project between Talapady and Kundapura in Karnataka, had failed to complete the project since over a decade.

The service roads and two flyovers under the project remained uncompleted. Hence motorists were facing a hardship. Notwithstanding Nalin Kumar Kateel, Dakshina Kannada MP, arranging ₹56 crore loan to the NUTPL through Axis Bank to complete the prominent Pumpwell flyover in the city, the company had failed to complete it.

The MLAs said that they stopped the toll collection as a symbolic protest to bring pressure on the company to complete the project within this month.

The BJP workers who gathered near the toll gate around 7.30 a.m. forcibly removed the barricades and made the vehicles ply without paying the fee. The workers of the company managing the toll booth did not resist.

The BJP workers said that vehicles would ply without paying toll till about 6 p.m. If the company resumed the collection during the day on Wednesday, the party workers would again forcibly stop it on Thursday, they said.

Shivaprasad Rai, in-charge of toll collection of the company at Talapady, Hejmady and Sasthana on the same highway told The Hindu that the NUTPL collected about ₹7 lakh as toll fee daily at Talapady from over 12,000 vehicles. The loss on Wednesday could be about ₹4 lakh.

The project is being implemented under build, operate and transfer basis.