DH Interview | New space tech policy could be ready in time for next Karnataka budget: Priyank Kharge

Ahead of the Bengaluru Tech Summit next week, Karnataka’s Information and Biotechnology (IT/BT) Minister Priyank Kharge sat down with DH for an exclusive interaction.

Kharge, in conversation with Sonal Choudhary and Arup Roychoudhury, said that his department is trying to make it easier for start-ups to get venture capital funding, and that requests to the central government for fiscal incentives for the tech sector, and help with setting up a regulatory sandbox, have elicited no response.

Edited excerpts:

You have been successful with initiatives to help startups, like Elevate, and the accelerator programme. What are your plans next? Do you plan to expand the scope of existing schemes?

We have enough start-ups registered with the Karnataka government, who have access to centres of excellence and mentorship. Now I am trying to see how we can ensure that the private sector, the angel investors or VCs are available for these start-ups. We are evolving a mechanism and have spoken to a few VCs, asking them to evaluate some of these start-ups. It reduces their gestation period. Otherwise having access to these VCs is a difficult task. So the start-ups will either be selected by Elevate programme or part of centres of excellence or they would have participated in our summits. The idea is to ensure we give them more exposure to seed capital and the VC ecosystem. This platform will be ready by the Bengaluru Tech Summit.

You also said that a space tech policy is in the works. Can you share more details?

Bengaluru is the hub for the space sector. We have successfully ensured that the startups and manufacturing by MSMEs are here. I think we are undoubtedly the number one in this sector. So if I am able to get a space tech policy, which will accelerate growth in both SMEs and in startups, whether it's building a software or whether it's making small component parts, that is what we are aiming for. The policy is at the macro level, the schemes are at the micro level. Now I want to get down to the nano level. I plan to ensure that everything happens at the smallest level so that there is scope for growth.

We are evaluating what sort of incentives or sops we will provide. Its just been a month since the consultations have begun. I myself have had two rounds of consultation with the industry stakeholders and we've got a transactional advisor on board for this. So we are seeing the best practises across the PSUs, private sector and across the world.

By when can we expect the space policy to be announced?

The scope is huge. There is upstream and downstream. Upstream is the actual space usage, but what about the downstream, which is a lower hanging fruit, wherein applications that are used for space can be used in other sectors like agriculture, horticulture, spatial data management, mapping, etc. That is what we are working on as well. Hopefully, we will get it ready by the time of the next state budget

Last month, in light of the rain and the flooding, it was announced that there will be a committee with private sector participation to find solutions which will help the tech parks and IT industry. Where are we on that front?

We have our vision groups who we consult, IT, BT, start-up and other industry vision groups that are there. The Deputy Chief Minister already had one round of talks with them for a couple of hours along with the officials. We have been given certain suggestions and we have bucketed that into immediate and short-term solutions. Besides that, we have also formed a sub-committee where I am the vice chairman. So we will be going to all these associations, whether it is the

Outer Ring Road, Whitefield, the tech parks, the business parks, the industrial areas.

The idea is to treat these as brownfield. So the civic amenities I provide will ensure that they build it up to their capacity. I need to ensure I give all that they require, whether it is last mile connectivity, telecom infrastructure, road infrastructure, the drainage system, and other amenities. So the idea is to ensure that first we saturate the brownfield and then we create new greenfield projects. We will be going and talking to each of these associations. I myself will sit, understand what is the problem with the traffic, what is the problem with any other infrastructure that they need. 

You have been saying this for a while, that there is a lack of level playing field when it comes to attracting investments, among states. Could you elaborate on that?

Now my point was with the semiconductor investments. I'm not saying semicon should not go to Assam or should not go to Gujarat. I'm merely asking, when I have one third of all the tech talent in the country in my state, why are we not deserving of it? Now, show me one state which has done VLSI (very large scale integration) projects. where we have trained people for VLSI. Look at the Rs 28,000 crore investment of Micron in Gujarat. Half of that is coming from the centre, the rest from the state. It is effectively a PSU. They are giving Rs 1.5 crore subsidy for every job that's created which is 5,000 jobs. I would have understood had it been 50,000 jobs. So, just calculate everything. How does it make economic sense? I mean, you can't keep arm-twisting investors to go to a place where there is little or no infrastructure, technical knowhow or ecosystem.

So, they announced five centres of excellence for AI, right? Now, Bengaluru is rated number five among the global AI cities. India has the highest AI talent availability, most of it is centered around this city. Highest female talent employability, most deep tech start-ups are in Karnataka. So, beats me why a single AI centre was not for Karnataka?

In June, you had requested the centre's help to provide some fiscal incentives for the electronics and semiconductor sectors in Karnataka. Any progress?

I have been asking. If it doesn't suit then they are muted. I had written to minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Nirmala Sitharaman. I have heard nothing.

There has also been talk of setting up a regulatory sandbox for financial services, similar to GIFT City. How advanced are the plans?

That is something that I don't think the centre will be interested in hearing. Because the minute you announce another Gift City with that kind of incentives, Gujarat loses out. We have formally asked, the centre has not responded. I would at least expect a ‘no’, but have heard nothing. We cannot create such a regulatory sandbox without the centre’s help. In the federal structure I cannot work independently. There are a lot of subjects of export and services covered by the centre.

Recently there was an ill-advised bill which sort of scared off corporate India regarding quotas for local talent. These things generally impact the talent that the state attracts. Your views?

So, as a minister for the state of Karnataka, it is my job to create jobs for the local, employment for the local. People from North India come for livelihood here and we are open about that. But the point is that if I am able to provide my people with the right skill set we will be able to garner more jobs. It is my primary responsibility to ensure more Karnatakas are employed. The idea is that we ensure that they are trained so well that there is a requirement for our people across the globe. That is what we are focusing on with the Nipuna Karnataka scheme.

Is the Karnataka government looking at regulating cyberspace in light of increasing online frauds, given how the US and EU have come up with stringent measures to tackle it?

Since Karnataka has the top tech talent, it also witnesses tech crimes and Bengaluru is sort of number one in terms of cyber crime. Cyber crime is a very vast thing from online job frauds to crypto frauds to extortion. We also have misinformation, fake news, for which the Home Minister has formed a committee with the IT department and other officers to figure this out because we are losing thousands of crores monthly with respect to reported crimes on phishing and other things. 

So we are approaching it in a three-problem strategy which is creating massive awareness so that is something that we have discussed and we will be taking up shortly. Secondly, training,for which we have tied up with Meta and WhatsApp to train more than 1 lakh children and teachers. Third being the policy, which includes regulation and centres of excellence to ensure startups build more safe mechanisms for the government. Besides that, we have spoken to a lot of companies in cyberspace who are ready to partner with us for these kind of things.

We are trying to create regional cyber crime centres where we train our personnel on methods and standard operating procedures.