Niti Aayog says no to pharma park in Karnataka

HUBBALLI: Kadechur in Yadgir district has failed the Niti Aayog’s test to host a pharmaceutical park, while Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have made the cut. It is now left to the state government to set up the park as it has cleared several projects to be set up at the facility during the recently held Invest Karnataka.

Union Minister of State for Chemical and Fertilisers Bhagawanth Khuba on Friday said that several states had submitted proposals to the Centre along with Karnataka, but the Niti Aayog shortlisted three states depending on different parameters and facilities provided. The policy-making agency has also considered the location benefits for conducting the business.

“I was hoping for a pharma park in Karnataka ever since I got elected, but it failed to meet the Niti Aayog parameters. It also cannot be reconsidered on the criterion of Kalyana Karnataka being backward. But during Invest Karnataka, the state government signed MoUs worth Rs 2 lakh crore and has been pushing pharma companies to set up units at Kadechur,” he added.

On setting up a fertiliser company in the North Karnataka region, which has been pending for long, he said, “Instead of starting a new company, the Union government decided to rejuvenate closed factories. Five such units have been restarted. The total fertiliser demand in the country is 3.4 lakh metric tonnes and the existing companies are meeting it. There is no proposal to set up a new fertiliser company.”

He said that despite a three to four-fold increase in prices of fertilisers in the international market, the Narendra Modi government has insulated farmers by increasing subsidies, which is expected to balloon to Rs 2.5 lakh crore this year from the previous year’s Rs 1.4 lakh crore. Farmers are getting urea at Rs 262 and DAP at Rs 1,350 per bag.

In some countries, fertiliser production has been stopped because of high prices and farmers are not getting this much-needed input. In India, however, no untoward incidents have been reported over the fertiliser issue since 2014 as proper distribution has been ensured, he said.