ER&DCI dissolved, merges with C-DAC

Sreekumar R

THIRUVANTHAPURAM: Electronics Research and Development Center of India (ER&DCI), the nation's exclusive R&D center, has been dissolved and merged with C-DAC, a society under the Union Ministry of Information Technology. The last meeting of ER&DCI governing council held in Delhi on December 10 decided to dissolve the society in tune with Ministry’s recommendation to regroup the various societies under the former Department of Electronics (DoE) into functional categories.

Henceforth ER &DCI would be allowed to do only R&D projects and undertake high-end training projects and discontinue the lower-end training programs. It is still not clear what the new name of the merged entity would be. The MIT move has caused apprehensions among the ER&DCI personnel in Thiruvananthapuram who fear that their identity would be lost once it is merged with C-DAC.

It is ironical to note that ER&DCI was given a rating ahead of C-DAC by the committee appointed by Ministry to look into the functioning of societies under its umbrella, sources said. ER&DCI had established its presence in the industry by developing innovative products and solutions for defense, electronics, power utilities, steel plants, broadcasting, IT, social projects, etc. over the past two decades.

The society registered under the Travancore Societies Act and managed by Keltron was taken over Department of Electronics in 1988. ER&DCI survived on union government grants apart from revenue generated through projects and technology transfer. When the union grants were reduced from time to time, it took to training in a big way by providing both high-end and low end training to bridge the shortfall.

Now ER&DCI has requested the Ministry to provide more grants to bridge the gap created by the discontinuation of lower end training. The existence of Software Training & Development Center (STDC), a major revenue earner for ER&DCI, under the new arrangement itself is in doubt.

ER&DCI has requested that its identity be retained even under the new set up so that its good will among the clients and industry in general is not affected. However, C-DAC governing council meeting to be held on December 20 is expected to take a decision on these matters. ER&DCI has two other centers in the country- one at Noida and the other at Kolkata. The Noida and Kolkata centers have 50 percent financial participation from the respective state governments, whereas in ER&DCI Thiruvananthapuram Union Government does the entire funding.

Interestingly, none of the state government invitees of the three ER&DCI centers were present in the concluding meeting of the governing council of ER&DCI in Delhi, sources said.About 15 societies covered under the Ministry have been regroup or merged to focus on three or four core areas- strategic applications, R&D, training and HR and commercial services. Regrouping has been undertaken as many of the societies were functioning at cross purposes, lacking focus and resulting in duplication of work. ER&DCI, C-DAC, NCST have been merged to focus on R&D.