| EPCH Taking New Initiatives to Boost Handicraft Exports |
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Introducing Social & Environmental Compliance Norms |
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Exploring New International Markets |
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Developing North-East & Southern India as New Handicraft Zones |
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Offering Design Assistance to Smaller Exporters |
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| Even the fact that the
handicraft sector has
been the worst hit by
global recession, as it
becomes the last priority in a slow economy, has not dampened the spirit of EPCH, rather they have geared up to explore newer markets for India so that in future it doesn’t face as grim a situation as 2008. Says Malhotra, “In my last 1½ year’s tenure as Chairman of EPCH, we have added more than 33% new trade fairs in our list. Last year it was 32, this year it’s 47 trade fairs that we are attending. Already handicraft exports have gone up by 19% and it may touch US $ 120 million in July 2010 as against US $ 101 million in the corresponding period previous year. I would like to attribute this also to the Government which is giving special attention to this sector as it is labour intensive industry.” |
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RAJKUMAR
MALHOTRA |
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Indeed the council has a busy calendar with about 68 activities planned overseas and 138 activities in India. The council is aggressively penetrating Latin America, West Asia and Russia as new markets. “In September we are going to Hong Kong show for the first time with largest participation in jewellery section,” shares Kumar. No effort is spared to penetrate both old and new markets.
Amongst its biggest focus currently is bringing in social and environmental compliances in the handicrafts industry as the buying houses are increasingly asking for them despite the basic fragmented nature of the industry. In fact, for EPCH the biggest challenge is that 90% of handicraft products are not manufactured within the four walls. “Our circumstances and challenges are different. If one works in a factory environment there is complete control over production and manufacturing capacity can also be increased as per requirement, but when one is working with human beings spread across different locations things are different,” reasons Kumar. Taking an upfront approach, the EPCH believes that both the issues are important to increase the productivity as well as livelihood. |
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| Social & Environment Initiatives |
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Taking a sensitive approach to social change in the industry, EPCH is introducing a new social scheme called ‘SHILP’ (Social Humanitarian Initiative Livelihood for Productivity). The scheme will take care of insurance, health and housing of the smallest of artisans. “There are about 7 million artisans involved in the handicraft industry. These people are the real producers of handicrafts and they would be benefited under this scheme. We want the grass-root level artisans to get the benefit of social compliances,” shares Kumar.
Kumar emphasizes on the fact that EPCH wants to work within the code of labour laws but reasons that some flexibility should be given to the exporters as the business is largely dependent on seasons. “Suppose a unit is having orders from Walmart for |
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 Handmade wooden carved items are very popular as gift items in the West |
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one lakh pieces of wooden handicrafts he will employ the people who are expert in that particular craft. The next time if he has an order for iron handicrafts, he should be allowed to hire workers of that particular skill and not be forced to retain the woodwork experts. It should not be like ‘permanent labour’ that once they have entered the premises then they will not go out. Our workload is seasonal so we should be allowed to hire labour as per the requirement,” points out Kumar.
The biggest concern for EPCH is that if the artisans are not looked after well or if the exporters do not comply with social compliances then these artisans would prefer |
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 EPCH is also now focusing on North-East and Southern part of India for handicrafts which is famous for its finesse and intricate work |
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to languish under NREGA or shift to some other professions like they might become a rickshaw-puller. “Being a nodal body, we are encouraging exporters to pay PF and ESI to contain these artisans. Now the whole tune of the exporters is in this direction. The handicraft sector could be the first one which will be fully implementing humanitarian initiatives,” avers Kumar. He further adds, “Just Rs. 150 is to be paid under our insurance scheme. The worker is insured for Rs. 15,000/annum with ICICI Lombard. We don’t want a sick artisan to be working for us we want a healthy artisan working for us. If there is any casualty while working for us then the labour’s family should be compensated. That is part of our whole system,” avers Kumar.
As a first step, EPCH is conducting seminars to create awareness about compliance issues. “Ninety per cent of our exporters do not know what are compliances,” points out Malhotra. The Council is also anticipating some threats from the US on child labour. Most of the handicraft products are being made by the families where even children are involved from very young age. So EPCH wants to convey to the buyers that it’s a tradition and not exploitation. A girl who comes from her school and makes a crochet lace should not be considered as child labour, but a continuation of a tradition, is the argument. “We have a lot of challenges; either the industry/India will loose the business or we have to change our working culture. We also have to explain to the buyer that these are home-made products and families are involved in producing these products. So in handicrafts involvement of child should be legitimated if he is not working in a factory premises,” voices Malhotra.
The second apprehension of EPCH is with regards to environment compliances as one of the major product range from India is wooden handicrafts. Kumar says that EPCH is concerned with the legal procurement of the wood which means that the council is not promoting illegal cutting of trees. “We are coming out with a complete system of FSCC (Forest Stewardship Council Certification) which would ensure that the raw material procured is only from legal source,” clarifies Kumar. |
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| Development of new craft centres |
So far EPCH has been focusing on the Northern, Western and Central part of part of India as a source of handicrafts. But now the council has started concentrating on Eastern, North- Eastern and Southern part of India as well. “The buyers today are looking for new developments in handicrafts as the product is mostly treated as gift items which need to be new and unique. We feel that the northern region is saturated so we are moving to newer clusters,” shares Kumar.
More so, to fortify the handicraft segment, an all-inclusive plan has been prepared to develop an International Local Trade Centre in Narsapur, Andhra |
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 RAKESH
KUMAR |
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Pradesh. EPCH will be establishing this project at a cost of Rs. 16 crores for hand crochet lace for home furnishing. “There are 3 lakh women working in this region and all of them would get opportunity to join hands with us; we have already taken the land,” informs Kumar. To offer newness to the buyers, EPCH has opened NCDPD (National Centre for Design & Product Development) which is taking care of the design aspects. “It is responsible to create our own designs and then guiding and helping all the exporters in implementation with a very minimum charge of Rs. 500. We are not connected with the artisans, we are connected with small exporters who are getting work done through the artisans,” highlights Malhotra.
EPCH is promoting Jodhpur as a cluster for furniture and accessories. It has recently started jewellery show which is another successful initiative by EPCH. |
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| Skill development
a Challenge |
| In handicrafts there are two types of skills: hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are where an artisan learns to produce from his childhood through his father or family. However, soft skills can be developed where just basics are required and even a high school pass or even lesser literate can be trained to handle. “In soft skills we want to train people for the local exporters, in which one subject is basic quality control which takes about 6 months. For example leather animals are exported from Indore, now these leather animals would stand still on a glass surface or not is to be checked, it’s a simple half minute job to check it,” Kumar cites an example. |
