Jabalpur is likely to have a furniture cluster with a common facility centre to help the industry units in collective form. The Madhya Pradesh government took an initiative to prepare clusters in Jabalpur to promote the industries by creating small clusters based on the raw material availability at the local level, whether it is forest based, dairy production or agro-based. Most of the MSMEs associated with these clusters would be micro and small segments with a capacity of about one crore.
The preparation of cluster formation is going on, and later the consultant will come and select the place, after that the process will go ahead. Himanshu Khare, Senior Vice President, Chamber of Commerce mentioned that if over 90% small or micro units agree, then an attractive proposal can be made to the government under this initiative. There are over 200 registered small industries that are ready to join this cluster. These include timber merchants and furniture manufacturers.
He added that from Jabalpur, up to 500 tonne wood goes to other states, especially Rajasthan. And we buy the same wood at a higher rate after the value addition. Under this initiative, it is envisioned that a furniture cluster should be developed in Jabalpur so that people can get employment.
A timber trader in the city Mr Gursimran Saluja said that if cluster development is done through MSME, then we will get the knowledge of technology and Jabalpur will have a different identity. Mr Amardeep Singh Saluja said that if all the facilities are available in one place, it will be the best for the industry and lead to the development of furniture and we can also do iron or steel furniture business and possibly, can compete with Chinese products.