WB to focus on more micro units

The West Bengal finance minister, Asim Dasgupta today revised the target for setting up of new small scale units and generation of employment through the West Bengal Khadi and Village Industries Board (WBKVIB) to 4,000 and 15,000, respectively.

The initial target for new units was around 3000 and the Board helped set up 3174 units in 2002-03. Number of units set up under the scheme was 1,500 till September and the minister was confident that the target would be achieved and exceeded.

The amount to be sanctioned under the scheme would be Rs 46 crore against Rs 23 crore in the previous year. The government along with WBKVIB will try and distribute the target to different district levels so that specific area wise employment generation can be created.

The West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said that the state government agencies were engaged in the task of mapping the whole area with regards to minerals and agricultural products available so that domestic and small time investors find it easy to pinpoint the various sectors it could invest in.

The minister also said that training was required for small and medium sized entrepreneurs so that they could manufacture value added products that would have demand in the market.

The chief minister also said that at present the marketing and manufacture of products by small and marginal manufacturers are done by themselves - and it was a one man army in most cases.

"We need to break up marketing and manufacturing so that manufacturers can concentrate on just producing while, another group of people could concentrate on marketing "" thus creating a means of employment for them."

He informed about the formation of a state level group that would work on the possibilities of marketing in different states initially, which could later be increased to bring in specialised people for different district and block levels.

Bhattacharjee also said that poor migrants from the adjacent states and even from neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal were adding to the problems of the state.

"I do not favour provincialism, but there would not have been much problem in our state if we did not have a crowd of poor people pouring in from other states and even some neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal," he said.