West Bengal Beekeepers Association

Cluster in various forms particularly artisan based clusters have been in existence in India for various historical reasons. The reasons may be skill or raw material or technological or designing or market related or a combination of more than one reason. In the era of economic liberalization with increasing investment opportunities in various fields the rural sector has raised a point where there are opportunities for the village artisans for their traditional industries to bring about more value addition rather being mere suppliers of raw materials to larger processing units. With the combination of available raw materials skill innovative technology design intervention exploration of various market channels booked by institutional support service (implementing agency) Common Facilitation Centre (CFC) their products may find more recognition with the changing consumption pattern emphasizing more ethnicity eco-friendliness even visually accepted thereby reducing urban-rural disparities by promoting through broad based cluster concept in the rural areas.The importance and contribution of rural enterprise sector to the economic growth and prosperity is well established in most of the developed and developing countries. The role of traditional industries for creation of employment upholding the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation in the rural economy of the country is very important. To support encourage and strengthen this Government of India has been taking many proactive steps.It is proved that these traditional industries can boost up their competitiveness through networking and this process is easier and more sustainable if they work very closely with one another in clusters. Also they can build their competitive strength through cost reduction value chain up gradation and utilization of collective economics of scale when they cooperate with each other and build linkage with private or /and public service providers. The application of cluster approach has given very good results and sustainable development of rational industries in both developed and developing nations.