SIDBI adopts cluster model for fruit processers

Small Industries Development Bank of India(SIDBI) launched on Thursday its Business Development Services (BDS) cluster for micro, small and medium enterprises in the fruit and vegetables sector in Pune region.

The initiative will enable the fruit and vegetable producers in the region to access information about the forward and backward linkages "" in terms of finance, markets and technology inputs "" essential to their activities.

The initiative is part of a multi-lateral project supported by the Centre and international agencies like the World Bank, DFID, KFW and GTZ.

The BDS implementation project aims at capacity building for various services needed by the fruit and vegetable processing industry, including transportation, cold storage, testing and analysis, technology and equipment or pest control.

Rakesh Tiwari, deputy managing director of SIDBI, said the effort will involve facilitation of networking between MSME organisations and those who offer BDS in different areas of fruit and vegetable processing business.

The initiative will be implemented in three phases including diagnosis, capacity building and reward. The first stage will diagnose the needs for BDS services and the opportunities and challenges in BDS provisioning.

In the second stage, steps such as training, information access, market access and consultancy, and counselling services will be involved. The third stage will evaluate the actual increase in the productivity, profitability and competence of the MSMEs after which the participant will exit the cluster. The three stages will take four years to complete, he said.

SIDBI's chief general manager V S Rathore said such BDS clusters for 20 different industries have been identified and these will be implemented in two years.

Those opened before Pune fruit and vegetable cluster in Pune include Kanpur and Chennai for leather, Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh and Panipat in Haryana for floor covering carpets, he said. SIDBI will open five more clusters by March 2008 and all the 20 will be operational by end 2008, he informed.