All of Bengaluru is set to go wi-fi enabled shortly. Taking the lead to get over 200 wards across the city wi-fi enabled is Priyank Kharge, Karnataka Minister for IT, BT and Tourism. Two years ago, Bengaluru became the first to offer free Wi-Fi hotspot zones, starting with MG Road in the city’s central business district.

“We will soon be floating an RFP (request for proposal) for wi-fi enabling the entire city in over 200 wards, where the central business districts will go for a higher rate and wards like Chikkajala will go for lower rates,” Kharge told BusinessLine .

Meanwhile, the Minister last week received Cabinet sanction for ₹44 crore on Wednesday, which will be used to set up incubation centres that will serve as innovations hubs in Tier 2 and 3 cities, spurring entrepreneurship which will result in more job creation for locals and de-congest Bengaluru.

“Bengaluru is getting very crowded with IT firms. However, we cannot force IT firms to go set up shop in tier 2 and 3 cities without first creating an ecosystem for skills development in those cities. While these smaller cities are home to engineering colleges, the engineers who graduate from these cities are not employable. I got ₹44 crore sanctioned by the Cabinet on Wednesday to set up incubation centres in Kalburgi, Belagavi, Shivamogga, Mysuru, Hubballi-Dharwad and Mangaluru, to ensure that we breed innovation everywhere and provide a good thrust to entrepreneurship, rather than ask Intel to go and set up shop there,” said Kharge.

ESDM clusters

On the long pending brownfield and greenfield ESDM (electronics system design and manufacturing) clusters that have been in the pipeline for the last three years, Kharge said two ESDM clusters are being set up in Bengaluru and Mysuru at a total investment of $25 million.

“The brownfield ESDM cluster in Mysuru is ready and we are just waiting for the Chief Minister’s nod to announce it. Our investment for the Bengaluru cluster in Electronics City is ready but since it is based on a PPP (public private partnership) model, we are awaiting investments from the private players, which has been going back and forth for a while now.

“We are thinking of moving the third cluster from Peenya in Bengaluru to a location in Mumbai-Karnataka or Hyderabad-Karnataka as Peenya is already cluttered with a lot of industrial units. The greenfield cluster in Tumakuru, Bengaluru has few takers as the private sector is attracted to the much larger incentives and rebates offered by Central and State governments for the National Investment Manufacturing Zone located close by.”

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