The India cluster story is coming of age. Be it hand block-printed textile units in Jaipur, hosieries in Ludhiana and Tirupur, food processing units in Pune, pharmaceuticals in Ahmedabad, leather goods in Ambur in Tamil Nadu, these cluster programs which were started as informal experiments and subsistence ventures in the 1990s, have today evolved into a movement that is redefining India’s competitiveness at the grassroots.

A joint study conducted by CII and McKinsey & Co forecasts that extending quality practices through clustering across India’s 390 SME and 2000 artisan clusters can help take India’s manufacturing exports from $40 billion to $300 billion by 2015.

These clusters are also providing another important lesson: that small and medium Enterprises (SMEs) need not survive on government subsidies. They can very well compete in the global marketplace on their own strengths if they come together to identify common problems and find cost effective solutions.

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