The Karnataka government proposes to develop airports throughout the state, expecting the high-tech industry clustered around its capital, Bangalore, to spread further in the state, an official said on Wednesday.
Karnataka, known for its relatively cosmopolitan ways and educated work force, is home to a high-tech industry that earns $6 billion a year in export revenues. But almost of the earnings come from business in and around Bangalore.
To spur investment elsewhere in Karnataka, state and central authorities are expected to sign a deal on Wednesday to build an airport in Mysore, a tourist town in Karnataka.
The airport should be finished in two years, The Hindu reported, citing P G R Sindhia, the state's finance minister.
Plans also were in the works to build airports in three other cities besides upgrading the existing ones in two cities, the newspaper said.
Bangalore, India's high-tech hub, will also get a new airport that could replace its old congested one, in 2008.
A senior state government official said the new and improved airports would help spread investment throughout Karnataka.
"This will help us ... bring investments to those smaller cities," Shankaralinge Gowda, a top official in the state's information technology and biotechnology department, told The Associated Press.
"These tier-two cities are going to be our focus for developing an information technology zone," he added.
The projects will be jointly funded by the state and central governments and managed by the Airports Authority of India.
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