KARNATAKA

The Karnataka legislative assembly passed the long-pending Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority Bill, 2022 that aims to streamline the ill-famed Bengaluru traffic and integrate public transport Services and civic agencies under one roof for effective coordination.

Piloting the bill on CM Basavaraj Bommai’s behalf, law and parliamentary affairs minister JC Madhuswamy said the bill has been drafted to supplement the Centre’s National Urban Transport Policy.

Bommai said the city’s bottlenecks are largely due to the high-density national and state highways that merge into the city.

No merger of Amul & Nandini: Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai

Chief minister Basavaraj Bommai clarified that there was no proposal to merge Amul and Nandini brands and that Union cooperation minister Amit Shah’s statement was being misinterpreted.

There is no merger of brands. Amul will remain as Amul and Nandini will continue as Nandini. There was absolute clarity in his statement that Amul and Nandini can have an exchange of ideas that will help grow both the brands,” said Bommai.

The CM, however, said the only cooperation between the two brands proposed by Shah was an exchange of technical and Marketing models.

The department of PU Education (DPUE) is tying up with Indian Institute Of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, to improve the quality of education inKarnataka. As the first step, 30 lecturers attended a workshop withIIM-Afaculty where the premier institution tried to find out the problems faced by them at the grassroots level.

The lecturers suggestions included refresher courses, in-service training for principals, multi-level monitoring system as in the department of public instruction, and motivational sessions.
The lecturers pointed out that they are overburdened with many tasks apart from academic work. They suggested regular assessment of students, reduction of classroom: teacher ratio to give better attention to students, and use of technology in TEACHING.

The will allocate funds in the annual budget for publishing a series of books on important places inKarnataka, said chief minister BasavarajBommai.

The task of publishing HISTORY and culture of Dharwad will be assigned to KVVS which has played a key role in the unification of Kannada-speaking areas into Karnataka and also freedom struggle, the CM said.

Bommai said Dharwad will also be developed as an important industrial hub with the setting up of Chennai-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.

Amrutha Munnade, a scheme announced in the 2022 budget, is being implemented inDharwaddistrict to provide Skill development training for students to increase EMPLOYMENT opportunities. Various free courses are being given to candidates belonging to the backward classes through Amrutha Munnade.

Training will be provided by theKarnatakaGerman Technical Training Institute (KGTTI), Government Tool Room and Training Centre and Industrial training institutes (ITI).

There are 30 courses in GTTC, Hubballi. Many courses have already started in KGTTI. Devaraj Urs, the backward classes development corporations district manager, AT Sultanpur, said the government had called applications from students.

In a novel initiative which may ease the woes of property owners inKarnataka, the government will soon launch a digital wallet with a smartcard and key for storing property records.
The project has been taken up by the centre for smart Governance (CSG), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Karnataka government. The intent of the project namedKaveriblockchain is to digitise and authenticate all land records in the state.

From government-owned properties to agricultural land and commercial and residential properties, every property owner will soon be handed a smartcard which will store the land records in his/her name. As many as 67 types of land transactions, including sale, purchase, lease, mortgage, gift deeds etc,. will be recorded and can be verified using the smartcard. CSG has already undertaken a pilot in Tumakuru district, with farmers and property owners registering their property records and carrying out transactions using only the smartcard.

The government will issue a smartcard with a chip in it to property owners whose names have been registered by the revenue department against the land/properties they own. It is issued to any person who intends to register a property or already owns one.

A research and development (R&D) centre and manufacturing factory for space taxis (orbital transfer vehicles or OTVs) and propulsion systems for rockets and satellites is expected to begin first-phase operations on a five-acre facility at the aerospace park near Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) by late 2023.
The new facility, expected to be worth $76 million (around Rs 630 crore) once fully operational, will be established by space tech firm Bellatrix Aerospace, a Bengaluru-headquartered company specialising in in-orbit propulsion systems and OTVs/space taxis.

At the new facility, aside from the space taxi, the firm will manufacture four of its thrusters theHallthruster, microwave plasma thruster, nano thrusters and green propulsion systems.

While chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday reaffirmed his commitment to promote Kannada, stakeholders urged the to prevail upon the Centre to accord Official Language status toKannadaand other regional languages on a par withHindiand English.

The activists revived their demand of official status to all 23 scheduled languages in the central government administration through a constitutional amendment. They want a resolution passed in the legislature.

Meanwhile, the Kannada Development Authority (KDA) is preparing a draft of the Samagra Kannada Bhasha Masoode (Comprehensive Kannada Language Bill) envisaging a single-window agency to implement Kannada in the state administration and frame common rules for promoting it, including signages in public places and commercial establishments.

Article 343 of the Constitution states that the official language of the Union shall be Hindi along with English and theyre now being used for official purposes by the central government. Language activists want it to be amended to accommodate all scheduled languages, including Kannada. They want Article 351, which says its the duty of the Union Government to promote Hindi, to be repealed.

Universities and autonomous colleges are free to draft their own syllabus and make changes in the model curriculum, if they are unhappy with it, while retaining the number of credits.
Several lecturers are unhappy with the model curriculum. Some have pointed out that the content in HISTORY for the first two semesters is Karnataka-specific.

In a letter to CMBasavaraj S. Bommai, Chamber President Isaac Vas pointed out that ATF is subsidized to as low as 1% in the neighboring state while it is as high as 28% in Mangaluru making it unattractive for new airlines to come and start operations. He said the Chamber has been advocating rationalizing/reducing VAT on ATF in Karnataka for a long time.
In August last year, the Kerala government reduced tax rate on ATF from 5% to 1% for alldomestic flightsin the State to encourage domestic air travel. The tax was reduced for domestic flights operating from the Kochi International Airport and the Kozhikode International Airport for a period of 10 years.