First, following measures have been adopted for the promotion of specific village based industries:

1. With the objective of poverty alleviation programme in rural areas the West Bengal Government is trying to develop sufficient economic non-conventional sources of energy. For this SSI’s department is working on the bio gas project.
2. Sericulture is an important industry in the rural areas of the state providing employment to about 4 lakh persons. In this sector the state government’s main aim has been to provide encouragement for poor and marginal farmers as well as beneficiaries of land reform measures to involve themselves in sericulture. The state government provides them with land, irrigation facilities, and supply of improved variety of cuttings and disease free laying.
3. Handloom industry is another major rural industry in the state providing employment to 7.12 lakh persons. The basic strategy of the state government in the handloom sector is to organise the poor handloom weavers into cooperatives and to provide these co-operatives with inputs, finance, technical as well as marketing assistance.
4. The state government also assists handicraft artisans -majority of whom are rural poor people - by providing them with training, production inputs, financial and marketing assistance.
5. Lac industry is another village-based industry, which has good growth potentials. More than 80,000 scheduled tribe families of the state are connected with this industry. The state government has established 23 lac firms and training centers for these people. Co-operatives of lac artisans have also been formed.

Secondly, for the overall development of the SSI the state government has undertaken the following steps:

1. West Bengal Small Industries’ Corporation (WBSIC) has been set up to provide infrastructural facilities, marketing assistance as well as scarce raw materials to small scale units in the state.
2. The state government has established Small Industries’ Development Agency (SIDA) for assisting registered sick small scale units by formulating rehabilitation packages in consultation with banks West Bengal Financial Corporation (WBFC).
3. In addition to central government measures like SEEVY or PMRY the state government operates an Entrepreneurs Development Programme (EDP) for the self-employment SSIs.
4. The state government is trying to develop SSI Units as ancillaries to large-scale industrial units. The government has laid special emphasis in persuading large central government Public Undertakings to adopt small-scale units as ancillaries. However, the response of central government undertakings situated in the state of West Bengal has not been encouraging.
5. To solve the financial problem of the small-scale industries West Bengal Financial Corporation (WBFC) is extending their financial support programme to the SSI. During the last five years 99.4% of the units financially helped by the WBFC are AAI.
6. For the development of the SSI industrial estate, District Industrial Centre (DIC) and Export Council have been formed in every district.

As a result of these measures West Bengal has attained the following:

1. Annual average industrial production index (Base 1970-100) has increased from 102.7 during 1975 to around 155 during 1995.
2. Number of SSI units in the state has increased from 100019 during 1976-77 to 454551 during 1997. 30 lakh people are employed in those units. Within India West Bengal has the largest number of registered small-scale units.