Karnataka at forefront of services: Jagdish Shettar

 Service sector is at the forefront of Karnataka's industrialisation, with specific policies in aerospace, infrastructure, IT and startups, Large and Medium Industries Minister Jagadish Shettar on Tuesday.

"Karnataka is a leader in medical education with numerous institutes of repute based in the state. It is well known for medical value tourism as well," said Shettar emphasising on the state's services prowess at the fifth edition of the Global Exhibition on Services (GES).

Commenting on education services, Shettar highlighted that several reputed institutes such as the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) are located in Karnataka, creating a robust talent pool.

As many as 26 per cent of international students arriving in India choose Karnataka to study, he said at the session 'Unleashing the service sector potential in Karnataka'.

The minister envisioned a great future for the state's tourism sector, bestowed with several historic cities, world heritage sites and biodiversity.

Shettar proposed to develop Jog Falls along the like of Niagara Falls to further bolster tourism in the state at the inaugural of the three-day GES event.

Strengthening Shettar's assertions, Karnataka chief secretary T. M. Vijaya Bhaskar said the state, a pioneer in bringing progressive policies, is the top services sector exporter in India.

"Services sector in Karnataka has been contributing to more than 68 per cent of Karnatakaa¿s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP)," said Bhaskar.

Though Karnataka has been at the forefront of services growth story in India, it still made giant strides in several other promising sectors such as health and wellness, e-commerce, research and development, infrastructure and construction, music and media, said Department of Industries and Commerce Principal Secretary Gaurav Gupta.

Gupta said Karnataka government is developing a Wellness cluster in Shivamogga to encourage the promising sector.

Chairman and Founder of Narayana Health, Dr. Devi Shetty said the healthcare sector at $8.2 trillion is the largest sector in the world, yet only 20 per cent of the worlda¿s population has access to quality healthcare.

According to Shetty, 80 per cent of hospitals across the world cannot afford electronic medical records.

"The days are not far away when India will take the lead in making every medical record available digitally on the patient's mobile phone," said Shetty calling on Indian startups to cheapen digitizing medical records.

Groceries delivery e-commerce player BigBasket co-founder Hari Menon said brick and mortar retail and e-commerce will coexist as online retail is only a small pie of offline retail at 5 per cent market share.

Menon said e-commerce is poised to growth up to 7 per cent in retail market share in the next 2 years.

Dr. Nanda Kumar Jairam, chairman of Columbia Asia hospitals said Ayushman Bharat has changed the landscape of Indian healthcare sector, necessitating the private healthcare sector to look at offering low cost high quality services.

However, Jairam said as 70 per cent of healthcare services in India are provided by private players, a government scheme like Ayushman Bharat cannot succeed without effective government and private sector coordination.

GES is aimed at engaging industry and governments to promote greater exchange of trade in services, organised by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC) and industry association Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Eom/542 words. IANS