Cluster failure: Kalaburagi, Bidar and Tumakuru fail to take off

BENGALURU: The ambitious industrial cluster creation of successive government of Congress-JD(S) coalition, and now the BJP, appears to have faced a setback with several key sectors seeking a change in “location” and companies not ready to adventure out of Bengaluru.
On Friday, during a review of the industrial clusters in Karnataka, a release by CMO said industries department principal secretary Gaurva Gupta informed chief minister BS Yediyurappa that it has failed to attract companies to Kalaburagi, the proposed location for manufacture solar panels.
Gupta has told Yediyurappa that most companies who are interested in manufacturing solar panels are not ready to move to Kalaburagi due to lack of proximity to Bengaluru, the capital city.
It may be recalled that the solar panel cluster is not the only one which is facing troubles in taking-off.
According to senior industries department, yet another cluster which is facing a crisis is the sports cluster in Tumkur.
“With traditionally strong cities like Jalandhar and Gurugram, who have established themselves as sports goods manufacturing hub, Tumakuru does not have the necessary infrastructure to encourage such a specialised sector,” said one senior department official.
The same fate appears to have been extended towards agriculture implements cluster in Bidar, with few takers on account of the serious drought affect in the country.
However, persisting with this cluster and adding one more to the list, the industries department has now decided to push for an Ayurvedic, pharma, health and wellness industry cluster in Shivamogga, the home district of Yediyurappa.
It may be recalled that the cluster policy was introduced by the previous coalition government under former CM HD Kumaraswamy as Compete with China (CwC).
The then government had identified no less than nine niche clusters in Karnataka, based on the demand for key products including solar panels, mobile parts, tiles and sanitary fittings, sporting goods, toys, textiles, agriculture implements, LED lights and ICB manufacturing.
The same has now been rechristened as cluster policy.