Royal families of Thailand eyeing 'gold' in Kolar

The royal families of Dubai and Thailand have proposed to jointly invest Rs 20,000 crore for setting up a theme park in Karnataka.

The facility, which will include an integrated residential township and hotels, will be spread over 20,000 acres in Kolar district, also known for its gold deposits.

"They want to develop a theme park with an integrated residential township, entertainment complexes and hotels, among others, for an investment of Rs 20,000 crore. The state government has had the first round of talks with their representatives but no decision has been taken yet," said Murugesh R Nirani, minister for large and medium scale industries.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function to launch new products of Corporation Bank on Tuesday, Nirani said the government had deferred a decision on the proposal. It has inited scions of the Dubai royal family for talks, he said.

He said the government had issued a final notification for acquisition of 80,000 acres in the state for allotment to industrial projects cleared during the recently held global investors' meet. The Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board had also issued preliminary notification for acquisition of another 30,000 acres, he said.

On protests from farmers in Bellary, Haveri and Bijapur districts on acquisition of land for the steel projects of ArcelorMittal and Tata Metaliks, and a proposed power project by state-run NTPC Ltd in Bijapur, Nirani said the government would not acquire land forcibly from any farmer.

"We will not force farmers to part with their land if more than 80 per cent of the farmers in any notified project area refuse to sell their land. In most of the cases, farmers are happy to give away their land. The government has offered to pay double the cost of the prevailing land price," he said.

Nirani said the government was hopeful of developing at least 6,000 Mw of power projects along the two natural gas pipelines under development in the state. While GAIL Ltd is laying an 800-km pipeline from Dabhol (in Maharashtra) to Bidadi (30 km from Bangalore), another pipeline is being laid by Reliance from Chennai to Mangalore via Bangalore.