Monday, September 12 2005 19:18 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Seeking to turn the tables on the IT sector for their shrill outcry over Infrastructural woes in the country's technology hub, Karnataka Finance and Industries Minister P G R Sindhia today asked the tech firms to 'cultivate the tendency' to provide jobs to Kannadigas.

"I am begging of them to give jobs Kannadigas. We will give them the infrastructure", Sindhia told reporters here while saying he failed to fathom why IT firms were complaining when the Government was doing its best to make things better.

Sindhia said Government was keen on implementation of the Sarojini Mahishi committee report on job opportunities for Kannadigas in industries. Notices had already been served on 167 firms on giving employment to Kannadigas. "Government is not for confrontation", Sindhia, a senior minister from JDS in the coalition ministry, told the IT sector which has held out threats to boycott "Bangalore IT. in", Karnataka's prestigious IT event slated for October here.

Saying he failed to understand why the IT firms were complaining, he said Karnataka's exports, including the IT sphere, had jumped to Rs 63,000 crore during 2004-05 from Rs 41,000 crore 2003-04 and projects worth Rs 62,000 crore had been cleared by the high-level committee headed by Chief Minister N Dharam Singh.

Karnataka's share in all India exports was 14.54 per cent, he pointed out.

Last week, persistent boycott threats by IT firms had invited a sharp reaction from the chief minister who had hit back saying there was a 'systematic propaganda' against Government.

Sindhia also announced the setting up of a committee headed by former bureaucrat Prabhu to review the state industrial policy, which would expire by the end of 2005.

He said he had asked senior officials of his department to tour the state to study the extent of implementation of the budgetary proposals and find out lacunae, if any, in doing so.

Sindhia said he would also review the VAT collection and resource mobilisation with departments connected with it this month.

He said the state owned MSIL had approached the authorities for entrusting to it cargo handling operations at the new international airport at Devanahalli, near Bangalore.