Small scale industries in India could not progress satisfactorily due to various problems that they are confronted with while running enterprises. In spite of having huge potentialities, the major problems, small industries face are given below.
1. Problem of skilled manpower: The success of a small enterprise revolves around the entrepreneur and its employees, provided the employees are skilled and efficient. Because inefficient human factor and unskilled manpower create innumerable problems for the survival of small industries. Non-availability of adequate skilled manpower in the rural sector poses problem to small-scale industries.
2. Inadequate Credit Assistance: Adequate and timely supply of credit facilities is an important problem faced by small-scale industries. This is partly due to scarcity of capital and partly due to weak creditworthiness of the small units in the country.
3. Irregular Supply of Raw Material: Small units face severe problems in procuring the raw materials whether they use locally available raw materials or imported raw materials. The problems arise due to faulty and irregular supply of raw materials. Non-availability of sufficient quantity of raw materials, sometimes poor quality of raw materials, increased cost of raw materials, foreign exchange crisis and above all lack of knowledge of entrepreneurs regarding government policy are other few hindrances for small-scale sector.
4. Absence of Organized Marketing: Another important problem faced by small- scale emits is the absence of organized marketing system. In the absence of organized marketing, their products compare unfavourably with the quality of the product of largescale units. They also fail to get adequate information about consumer’s choice, taste and preferences of the type of product. The above problems do not allow them to stay in the market.
5. Lack of Machinery and Equipment: Small-scale units are striving hard to employ modern machineries and equipment in their process of production in order to compete with large industries. Most of the small units employ outdated and traditional technology and equipment. Lack of appropriate technology and equipment create a major stumbling block for the growth of small-scale industries.
6. Absence of Adequate Infrastructure: Indian economy is characterized by inadequate infrastructure which is a major problem for small units to grow. Most of the small units and industrial estates found in towns and cities are having one or more problems like lack of power supply, water and drainage problem, poor roads, raw materials and marketing problem. Thus absence of adequate infrastructure adversely affects the quality, quantity and production schedule of the enterprises which ultimately results in under-utilization of capacity.
7. Competition from Large-scale Units and Imported Articles: Small-scale units find it very difficult to compete with the product of large-scale units and imported articles which are comparatively very cheap and of better quality than small units product.
8. Other Problems: Besides the above problems, small-scale units have been constrained by a number of other problems also. They include poor project planning, managerial inadequacies, old and orthodox designs, high degree of obsolescence and huge number of bogus concerns. Due to all these problems the development of small- scale industries could not reach a prestigious stage.
