However, for the justification of such a hypothesis the required statistics on SSI are not adequate. In 1990 a census of industries was conducted in the state of West Bengal by the Bureau of Applied Economics and statistics (BAES), Government of West Bengal. Later, to examine the above hypothesis regarding the nature and extent of the increase of industrial activities compared to 1990, a survey project called "Possibilities and Problems of Small Scale Industries in the district of Birbhum" was undertaken by the Indian Statistical Institute in 1995-96 at the request of Small Industries Development Corporation, Government of West Bengal, selecting the district Birbhum as it is typically an agriculturally predominated area. It was observed from the study that there has been a significant increase in the number of SSI units during this five year period. Industries producing new types of products have also been introduced within this period.

It is a well known fact that there exists a high mortality rate among the SSI units. In the face of this trend, the significant increase in the number of SSI in Birbhum calls for an investigation of causes behind this increase. In fact the pattern of growth of SSI, its size, components vary from region to region due to the interplay of historical, legal, institutional, cultural, social and economic factors specific to a region.

While examining the reasons behind this growth one may bear in mind that the overall increase in industrial activities in the district may of course be due to the growth of some specific industries. Also there may exist certain contributory factors. Identification of the specific industries supposed to be responsible for the overall growth and the factors behind this growth may help to delineate the appropriate policies in order to obtain the long term growth of SSI in the district. These are our objectives in the study.

The study considers the identification of major groups of industries and the factors responsible for the increase in numbers of them during the five year period from 1990 to 1995 in the district of Birbhum from the data collected from a survey using stratified multistage unequal probability sampling method.

It may be summarized from the above results that the industrial sector is predominated by traditional caste occupation - based family enterprises and industries rendering services to agricultural production. Here the observed rate of increase is low compared to other.

Higher rates of increase observed in some sectors may be explained by the increase in demand for goods and services during this period and justify the hypothesis that increased income of the rural people has an significant role in the development of small scale industries in this district.

The identification of factors responsible for the growth of particular type of industry also indicates that the people engaged in non-agricultural activities have the significant impact on the development of industries belonging to some sectors whereas beneficiaries engaged in agricultural activities are regarded as significant factor to explain the growth of other sectors. Another major industrial activity is explained by the contribution of rich or large farmers.