Leather Sector

Leather industry is spread over the formal as well as informal sectors and produces a wide range of products from raw hides to fashionable shoes. The industry comprises of firms in all capacities starting from small artisans to prominent global players and employs 2.5 million persons. A large part (nearly 60-65%) of the production is in the Small/Cottage Sector. Leather Industry is amongst top eight export earners for India.

India ranks first among major livestock holding countries in the world and thus has a rich endowment of raw materials in terms of the cattle population. India is endowed with 10% of the world raw material and Indian Leather export constitutes about 2% of the world trade. It has the capacity to fulfill 10% of the global leather requirement.

Leather sector in India has enormous potential for future growth and very high value addition within the country. The identified challenges before the Indian Leather Industry mentioned by Central Government are capacity inadequacy, raw material base, environmental issues, availability of the human resources and inadequate investment. In order to address these issues under Indian Leather Development Programme (ILDP) 11 sub-schemes have been approved for implementation during the 11th Five Year Plan period by Central Government. The emphasis of schemes is mainly on infrastructure development, capacity building, human resource development, investment promotion and addressing environmental issues for the leather industry.

Clusterkraft has worked in major Indian Leather clusters under different Projects with the objective of capacity building. Diagnostic study and SWOT analysis of these clusters were done for understanding cluster. Interventions were incorporated in the cluster catering to the identified needs and gaps in the cluster.