Evaluation Study MSE Cluster Development - Ministry of Micro ...

Chapter No:2 – The General Profile of Sampled Clusters2.9 Access to InformationUnits in each cluster constantly require a whole range of information. Informationrelated to market trends and new products are necessary to adapt quickly and effectivelyto market demand and changing tastes. Information related to market trends also helpsunits to diversify and attempt changes in the product range to stay and survive in highlycompetitive markets. Units also need to keep abreast with price trends and price relatedinformation concerning both inputs as well as finished products.Units also constantly require information related to new processes and technologies thatcan improve the quality of products, technologies and processes that can reduce costsand conserve energy, technologies and processes that are less polluting and therebymore sustainable in the long run. Participating units also need information related toregulatory measures, standards, taxes and various schemes and incentives provided bythe State and Central Government and various other developmental agencies.Access to information is thus the key to success and survival specially in the highlycompetitive world of today. With significant progress in information technology andcommunication access to information has been brought within easy and affordable reachof even the smallest of individual enterprises. However individual small entrepreneurswould still find it difficult to spare the time to access this wealth of information that theycan utilize. Common facilities or a common information centre catering to theseindividual units can considerably enhance timely access to information.We also observe that there is no dearth of information and very often there is too muchof it leading to an information overload, this can in fact do more harm than good to thesmall entrepreneur and leave him confused and disoriented. It is therefore veryessential to know what information is most required in a cluster and make the necessaryarrangement to collectively gather the information and disseminate it to the individualunits. The importance of this collective access to information and its regular andeffective dissemination should be very high on the agenda of the CDEs when they arecarrying out soft interventions. The efforts at creating a high level of awarenessregarding the benefits of regular access to information should not end with the softinterventions, but must be implemented through hard interventions in the concernedcluster.As seen in Table 2.12 only 4 out of the 22 sampled clusters reported access to sufficientinformation. In the case of 10 clusters it was reported that access to the requiredinformation was limited. It is also important to note that there were as many as 8sampled clusters that reported that they had no access to information.47