A new cluster in Bangalore’s Electronic City has raised Rs 14 crore from the central and state governments to help start-ups and small enterprises design, test and develop electronic devices.

The electronic manufacturing cluster has received Rs 10 crore from the central government and Rs 2 crore each from its 25-odd member-companies and the state government.

Spread over 30,000 square feet, the common facilities will include equipment to test products for their tolerance in temperature and humidity, and will be made available to the member-companies at a discounted price.

G RajNarayan

“The facilities will be up and running in December. We will see a much faster turnaround of products,” said Raj Narayan, president of the micro, small and medium enterprises cluster.

That is because prior to this, small enterprises had to go to government funded labs like Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) at Defence Research & Development Organization and private institutions like Wipro and L&T to test their devices, said Narayan. “It used to be very difficult. It’s prohibitively expensive in private companies and in government ones, we used to get time slots only after a week or two,” said Narayan, who also heads Radel Advanced Technologies.

The original article appeared on EconomicTimes.