Promote handicrafts sector: Vaghela

Mysore, June 9 (UNI) Union Minister for Textile Shanker Sinh Vaghela today emphasised the need to promote and develop the handicrafts sector to provide sustainable employment in the rural areas.

Inaugurating the Rs 2.75 crore urban HAAT complex, jointly established by the JSS Mahavidyapeetha with Union and State government here, he said the handicrafts sector had great marketing potential both in domestic and international arena.

It also has the potential to create large scale employment in the rural and semi-urban areas without much investment.

The Office of Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), a nodal central government organisation constituted to develop handicrafts sector in the country, has been implementing many developmental schemes for skill upgradation, product innovation, design and technology.

The most prominent scheme was Babasaheb Ambedkar Hastship Vikas Yojana (AHVY), through which 600 craft clusters across the country were selected for integrated development and make them self- sustainable. Around 200 clusters completed five years of intervention and over 45 per cent of them attained self-sufficiency and was now capable of producing bulk value added products to meet domestic and international demand, he said.

In the 11th Five Year Plan, 600 additional clusters were being identified across the country to be covered for integrated development under this scheme, he added.

To address the marketing needs of the artisans, a major constraint at present, the Office of the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) was mulling a scheme to set up urban HAAT in potential handicrafts markets in the country.

The new scheme would be on the lines of Delhi HAAT, initiated in the year 1999 to provide a permanent direct marketing platform to the artisans nearer to their work place.

The Ministry had so far sanctioned 36 urban HAATs across the country, of which seven were at Bhubneshwar and others at Karnal (Haryana), Ahmedabad, Gohar Mahal(MP), Jodhpur (Rajasthan), Srinagar and Jammu.

He also distributed health cards to the artisans of the state besides credit cards and financial assistance to the various craftspersons on the occasion.

Former Deputy Chief Minister and MLA Siddramiah, speaking on the occasion, urged both Centre and State governments to establish urban HAATs in the district headquarters to help the artisans, who could not afford to travel from one place to another.

UNI