Bandicoot' looks out for saviour

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan is projecting Bandicoot, the utility hole cleaning robot as a Kerala startup success story. But the startup is struggling to get a suitable space for its manufacturing facility. On Tuesday, finance minister Thomas Isaac took to the Facebook to highlight their plight.  “The state still has some inherent hurdles that deny the deserving support to successful startups,” he wrote on his FB wall. He also said that the government should immediately create built-up spaces with modern facilities to give the necessary support to the start-ups.

The chief minister posted a video on Bandicoot on his official Facebook page on Monday and highlighted it as an instance of the state’s support to development initiatives. Genrobotics, started by nine young engineers, developed robot formally rolled out by the CM on February 26.  It is now being used for cleaning Kerala Water Authority sewerage system. The product had received national and international attention as a solution to end manual scavenging. It also received many enquiries.  But the startup is unable to gear up its activities over the last three months with no suitable space to build them.

It needs about 2,000 square-feet built-up space at the earliest to take the orders. 
They approached Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) for the space of a defunct unit at Apparel Park, Kazhakuttom.  As they went ahead with paper works, the firm which was earlier using that space moved court and stalled the allocation. Now Kinfra authorities have suggested an alternative space, but not a built-up one. 

Though the Kerala Financial Corporation offered to finance, that procedure also got held up by the delay in obtaining land. “We need a manufacturing facility at once and take up more orders," said Genrobotics chief executive officer Vimal Govind. "Though we had received many serious enquiries from different states, we could not give any commitments. Pricing also depends on the manufacturing facility.”

He said they got good support form the government in launching the product and hoped to resolve the space issue soon.  The team is now working from a temporary space provided by the KWA and depending on local manufacturers for components for a new unit of Bandicoot for Tamil Nadu. Kinfra managing director K. A. Santosh Kumar told DC that he was in talks with the startup team on allotting a vacant space. But Genrobotics is yet to decide on it.