Leather Industry - The Project
Leather is one of the prominent sectors in Indian economy with employment of 2.5 million workers and contribution of US$ 6 billion to the value of manufactured goods. The majority of this output is contributed by the SMEs clustered in 5-6 major locations.

Given the importance of SMEs and clusters, SIDBI has launched a program to enhance the competitiveness of SME clusters through strengthening of Business Development Services (BDS). This project, launched in 2006, is being co-funded by Department for International Development (DFID) of UK and GTZ of Germany.

In view of the leather sector and pre-dominance of SMEs, Kanpur leather cluster has been selected as one of the clusters for the project. Kanpur leather cluster comprises of about 1600 SMEs providing employment to more than a lakh persons and contributing Rs. 2900 crores of production annually. The exports have doubled over the last 5 years from Rs. 1068 crores in 2000-01 to Rs. 2039 crores in 2005-06. The cluster has created a niche for processing buffalo leather and stands out as the only center in the country producing saddlery items and safety shoes for export markets. It is also a global player in upholstery leather, footwear and leather goods.

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The BDS intervention under the program shall focus on: Building the capacity of existing and potential BDS providers to serve the cluster SME market more effectively; Facilitating networking between SME business associations and other BDS providers and similar associations in other countries; Developing linkage programs between large corporations and SMEs, working through the major SME business associations; Developing high quality, affordable management training for local SMEs; Entrepreneurship training programs to create new entrepreneurs; Providing SMEs with better access to technology, for example, through technology transfer agents/supporting dedicated institutions to facilitate dissemination of information on technology transfer and match-making. Wherever possible, private public partnership arrangements will be explored in rolling out BDS. Efficient ways of working with Government supported institutions in the intervention areas will be a part of the agenda under the Project.