Bye-bye Bengaluru is bye-bye Bharat: Priyank Kharge

BENGALURU: After Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal's recent statement that India should "look beyond" and build its own Silicon Valley, Karnataka IT minister Priyank Kharge said 'bye-bye Bengaluru is bye-bye Bharat', implying IT is integral to Bengaluru and there's no question of dehyphenating the two.
For many years, Bengaluru has been bearing the imprimatur of 'Silicon Valley of India', though the nomenclature is informal.
Goyal had suggested creating a new township and positioning it as the new Silicon Valley of India, while acknowledging Bengaluru's status and yet emphasising the need for a new approach. Goyal proposed collaborating with the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation to establish a dedicated township for entrepreneurs, startups, innovators, and disruptors.
On the sidelines of launching India's first GCC policy in Bengaluru on Friday, Kharge said that bidding farewell to Bengaluru was nothing short of bidding farewell to the country as far as the IT sector is concerned.
The Karnataka minister said Bengaluru's ecosystem has matured over the years with a confluence of R&D, IT services, aerospace, manufacturing, and startups. This unique blend has positioned Bengaluru as a trailblazer in fostering an innovative cluster. He said many semiconductor projects are going to be based in Gujarat, and Karnataka has not been given a level playing field despite its robust talent ecosystem.