With an approving nod coming from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Aurangabad to soon home a Common Facility Centre (CFC) at Shendra MIDC. The Centre will be set up at plot number 30 at five-star industrial area with an approved project cost of Rs 28.58 crore.
A united group of 20 small-scale industries and others from the city have come together to form the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for execution of the Electronics Manufacturing Cluster. This is projected to aid industry leaders in the production of world-class products by helping in design and production processes.
“While 10 locations in the country have been identified for developing an electronics manufacturing cluster, the one coming up at Aurangabad is first to get an approval from the Centre for CFC,” Suresh Todkar, director of SPV — Deogiri Electronics Cluster Private Limited, said to media on June 25, 2017.
Similar to the Marathwada Auto Cluster that caters to the need of automotive and related industries, the CFC will play the role of a business incubator for electronic design and manufacturing.
Like centralised facility, the CFC would offer technical expertise required to develop world-class products. It is expected to house the desired state-of-the-art machinery and automation techniques that can be used as a common pool of resources. Several small-scale industries cannot afford to purchase such machinery and equipment and therefore lag behind in the competition, Todkar said.
A minimum of 50 industries engaged in electronics manufacturing and design would benefit from the CFC, according to the SPV authorities.
“It could take at least one and half year to have the complete set-up ready. While it will be too early to quantify the benefits to be reaped in terms of cumulative turnover of money, we are confident that the CFC would give a boost to the local electronics sector in both designing and manufacturing stage,” authorities said.
The Centre has also stated that any escalation in the cost of the individual project components shall be solely borne by the SPV and that they shall arrange additional funds, if required, to meet time and cost overruns.
Considering the set of conditions involved, we have to expedite the things to meet the stipulated deadlines. “We are in the process of generating our share of the money to be raised by the constituent units,” Todkar said.
