The Hindu Business Line : Cluster development centre set up in Hyderabad

THE country's first National Resource Centre for Cluster Development (NRCD), to boost manufacturing in small and medium enterprises, has been set up at the National Institute of Small Industry Extension Training (NISIET) in Hyderabad.

The Union Ministry of Small Scale Industries (SSI) has given Rs 1.5 crore to NISIET to develop the centre as a nodal agency for cluster development in the country. It has identified about 40 clusters whose needs to emerge competitive in the open market economy have to be catered to.

NRCD has an Advisory Committee, with the chairman being the development commissioner of the SSI Ministry, and the member-secretary, the principal director of NISIET.

It would also have 13 members drawn from the ministries concerned, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), Nabard, the Khadi and Village Industries Corporation, National Small Industries Corporation Ltd, the Department of Science and Technology, etc.

The primary objective of the centre now is to provide handholding and monitoring services to the 40 clusters by training Small Industries Development Organisations (SIDOs). For the current year, 20 clusters, which include fans in Hyderabad; wet grinders in Coimbatore; sewing machines in Ludhiana, hosiery in Kanpur; traditional furniture in Srinagar; cricket bats in Ananthnag; rice milling in Karnal; gun manufacture in Patna; auto components in Jamshedpur and pharma in Goa, have been identified for training. The remaining 20 would be completed by 2005-end, according to Mr Chukka Kondiah, Principal Director of NISIET.

"We plan to organise training for batches of 20 people from SIDOs in these regions, so that they can take back the expertise and help the industry clusters. Four workshops have already been organised," Mr Kondiah told Business Line.

NISIET has so far completed executive training programme on cluster development for Government, financial institutes, diagnostic study on crochet lace cluster in Narsapur, Andhra Pradesh, and pilot studies on pharma in Hyderabad, handlooms in Venkatagiri and aquaculture in Nellore district.

NRCD will also organise diagnostic studies in these clusters to identify problems and then help them prepare action plans, which would then be easier to implement. Though clusters per se are not new, the approach to address their problems in totality and provide practical solutions is what is being tried now, Mr Kondiah said.

NRCD is drawing lessons from the UNIDO methodology, besides the successful Italian experiences in cluster development, the NISIET Chief said.