Background
Government of West Bengal has taken up the Cluster Development approach as the main strategy for enhancing productivity, competitiveness and capacity building of MSMEs with collective efforts and initiatives of individual units. A cluster is a group of enterprises located within an identifiable, manageable and contiguous area where stake-holders producing same/ similar products/ services to maintain assertive enterprising characters like similar or different methods of production/ quality control/ testing / energy consumption/ pollution control/ technology and marketing strategies / setting up of Common Facility Centre is required to supplement the critical activities.
Cluster Development Programme is intended to build up associations and or to form Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) within the stake-holders which are integral part of the scheme to implement and carry on the intended activities to reach the desired goal for mutual benefit of the stakeholders. This programme will also enable the MSMEs to leverage their resources, to have better access to public resources, to find linkages to credit and enhance their marketing competitiveness.
Purpose of the Cluster Development Programme:
Sustainability and growth of MSMEs by addressing following common issues :
- Improvement of technology, skills and quality, market access, access to capital etc.
- Solution of firm-level critical activities by the way of common approach like commontestingcentre/ common training centre/ common material depot etc.
- Common initiative for infrastructure development of the cluster area like connectivity of road/ electrification etc.
The Ministry of MSME, Government of India has adopted cluster development approach to enhance productivity and competitiveness of MSEs in a collective manner.
The detailed guideline of their scheme is available at www.dcmsme.gov.in
District wise No. of Cluster Development Projects under the Directorate of MSME, West Bengal:
| Sl No. | District | No. of Clusters in Districts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alipurduar | 3 |
| 2 | Bankura | 16 |
| 3 | Birbhum | 13 |
| 4 | Purba Burdwan | 7 |
| 5 | Cooch Behar | 8 |
| 6 | Dakshin Dinajpur | 2 |
| 7 | Darjeeling | 14 |
| 8 | Kalimpong | 7 |
| 9 | Paschim Bardhaman | 7 |
| 10 | Hooghly | 16 |
| 11 | Howrah | 27 |
| 12 | Jalpaiguri | 3 |
| 13 | Kolkata | 6 |
| 14 | Malda | 20 |
| 15 | Murshidabad | 21 |
| 16 | Nadia | 15 |
| 17 | North 24 Parganas | 22 |
| 18 | Paschim Medinipur | 17 |
| 19 | Jhargram | 3 |
| 20 | Purba Medinipur | 22 |
| 21 | Purulia | 14 |
| 22 | South 24 Parganas | 12 |
| 23 | Uttar Dinajpur | 17 |
| Total | 292 | |